


The Nightmare House

by MrTyeDye



Category: The Loud House (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, Horror, Literature, Nightmares, Surreal, fan fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-16
Updated: 2018-03-16
Packaged: 2019-04-01 06:03:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 22,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13992015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrTyeDye/pseuds/MrTyeDye
Summary: An anthology of the worst nightmares ever suffered by the Loud children.





	1. Lori

Nightmares...devious little things, aren't they?

The human brain is capable of processing and retaining a startling volume of information. That compact little organ above your shoulders is home to an extensive archive of decades worth of memories, experiences, facts, acquired skills... and a cache of all your greatest fears and your deepest insecurities.

And what does your brain do with that little cache? Does it keep it locked away, letting it lay dormant until a practical need for it arises? Oh, no, no, no. Your brain waits until you fall asleep, and then uses that cache to meticulously craft horrifying visions, specifically designed to terrorize  _you_.

That is what a nightmare is.

And it's what you're about to see. Beyond this point is a series of ghastly, surreal sequences, produced from the darkest crevasses of the subconsciouses of the eleven Loud children.

If that sounds too frightening for you, I won't force you to stay. Now's your last chance to click that back button in the top left corner and choose something else to read.

...

No? You're still going to stick with this?

Very well. But don't say I didn't warn you.

_**Welcome... to the Nightmare House.** _

* * *

Lori sat up in her bed with a yawn and a stretch. She had read on a few health blogs that an afternoon nap was healthy for a teen girl, and after that power nap she could certainly see why. She felt completely rejuvenated after just an hour of sleep - or, at least, what she  _thought_ was just an hour of sleep. Glancing over at the clock on her nightstand, Lori was a bit surprised to see the reading "6:00" staring back at her. She could've sworn that she dozed off at 3.

_Sheesh, how'd I conk out for that long?_

Lori made a mental note to set an alarm for herself next time as she hopped off the bed and walked towards the door. Once she exited her room, she caught a whiff of expensive perfume wafting down the hall. That, of course, could only mean one thing; their parents were going out and leaving her in charge.

Sure enough, by the time Lori made it halfway down the stairs, she caught a glimpse of their parents standing in the doorway - Dad in a suit, Mom in a dress - giving a wave goodbye to the kids, who were all scattered around the living room engaged in various different activities.

"We'll be back later tonight," said Rita. "Have fun, kids!"

With that, the two of them shut the door behind them and went on their way, eliciting a raised eyebrow from Lori. Normally, such a departure would come with a reminder that she was in charge, and Lori couldn't imagine why they'd leave that part out. Regardless, she just shrugged it off and assumed that it just slipped their mind.

Besides, if her parents weren't going to remind them who was in charge, she was more than happy to do so herself.

"All right, listen up!" she announced with her usual gravitas as she reached the last step on the stairs. "Mom and Dad are gone for the evening, and you know what  _that_ means."

In stark contrast to the reaction she expected, her ten younger siblings all slowly craned their heads toward her, displaying flat, unaffected expressions. Their faces were indicative of, at most, mild confusion.

"What  _does_ that mean, Lori?" asked Lincoln, in a voice that sounded almost mockingly coy.

"It means I'm in charge, twerp!" barked Lori, outraged at his insolence. "So you all better start-"

"But haven't you heard, Lori?" asked Lola.

Lori blinked, a bit flummoxed over Lola having the gall to interrupt her. "Heard what?"

"Mom and Dad changed the rules, Lori," said Leni. As she continued, she turned away from Lori and started filing her nails. "They're not leaving you in charge anymore. They think we can handle ourselves."

"W- _what_?!" yelped Lori, as her fingers coiled themselves into fists and the veins in her forehead started throbbing. The very idea that they'd strip her of her authority, without even  _telling_ her, was borderline blasphemous.

"You're lying!" she cried, pointing an accusatory finger at Leni - who, in response just kept her gaze focused on her nails. "You're  _all_ lying!"

Luna took out her phone, placed it on the floor and coolly slid it across the floor until it lied at the eldest's feet. "If you don't believe us, call 'em up, dude," she said.

Lori snatched the phone up off the floor and started punching in Rita's cell number. "Well, maybe I  _will_! And when I do, you'll all be in big... um..."

A short glance away from the phone revealed that Lori's threats hadn't fazed any of the children in the slightest. Only a couple of them were even bothering to look her way, and the few eyes that  _were_ resting upon her bore no traces of fear or even surprise.

"You know what? It doesn't matter," said Lori, dropping the phone. "Because I know for a fact that you  _can't_ handle yourself! Last time I left the house to you, it literally almost got destroyed!"

"And we've learned our lesson," said Lana. "We all agreed that we're going to be calm and play nice for the next few hours. So you can just run along to your room if you want."

Lana capped off her remark with a dismissive "shoo" gesture. Lori gasped, appalled at such a blasé gesture of insubordination, and stomped over to Lana as jets of steam started shooting out of her nostrils.

"Now you listen here, missy!" shouted Lori. "If you think I'm just going to go back to my room and trust you all to stay out of trouble, you're literally insane! So I'm just going to stand here and make sure that-"

"The fact that you still have yet to take the hint is quite astonishing to me," interrupted Lisa. "But let me spell it out for you in the bluntest way possible;  _we don't need you_."

Lori balked, reacting to that terse sentence as if it were four consecutive punches in the gut. "W-what do you mean, you don't need me?!" she cried, a hint of nervousness entering her voice.

"Just what she said," said Lucy, as she rose from the couch and walked straight up to Lori. "We don't need you."

"You do so! Without me, you-"

" _We don't need you_ ," interrupted Lucy. Lori flinched, each word piercing her skin like a bee sting.

"Stop saying that this instant!" Lori demanded, in a desperate attempt to reassert her authority. At that point, Lori didn't care what their parents said. She wasn't going to be talked down to by an eight-year-old girl who only came up to her...

...chin?

When Lori looked down at Lucy, she noticed that the top of her head, which normally stood no higher than Lori's chest, was now level with her chin. Did Lucy just go through a growth spurt without anyone noticing?

 _"We don't need you_ ," Lucy repeated. This time, the sentence was echoed by the rest of the siblings, all speaking in the same low, flat monotone as her. Lori doubled over in pain, clasping her hands over her ears in an instinctual attempt to block out the message.

"I said stop!" she cried. "Or I'll... I'll..."

When Lori stood back up, she noticed that her eyes were now level with Lucy's. Her Third Grader sister was now somehow just as tall as her.

" _We don't need you_ ," repeated the younger siblings. " _We don't need you._ "

With every repetition of the phrase, Lucy's face seemed to ascend higher and higher beyond Lori's eye level. Lori's eyes darted around the room, scanning it for any kind of reaction from the rest of the room. How was the rest of the family so unperturbed by Lucy suddenly getting bigger?

Then, in the midst of her panic, Lori looked to her right and saw the armchair in the living room, noticing that she could barely see over the top of the armrest. The answer hit her like a bag of hammers.

Lucy wasn't getting bigger.  _She was getting smaller._

When she turned back towards Lucy, she found that she was now joined by the rest of the family, all grouped together and staring her down while they repeated that cursed four-word phrase. At this point, to her horror, her height was just barely above Lisa's, and she was still shrinking.

"Stop, please!" she begged, in a voice that was an octave higher than usual. Sadly, her requests fell on deaf ears; the family continued to chant, and she continued to shrink, until even Lily towered over her. Lori, with her heart now chilled with fear, backed away from her titanic siblings, only to trip and fall over a knot in the carpet. Upon sitting up to find what tripped her, she was served with a sobering reminder of how little she had become. The knot, which was too small for her to even notice just a moment ago, now looked to be the size of a basketball.

While she was still reeling from the realization, the now-enormous Lincoln stepped forward, bent down and picked her up, gripping her firm - not firm enough to hurt, but firm enough to remind her how easy it would be for him to squish her.

"Guys, I think Lori's getting a little excitable," he said, paying no mind to Lori as she hopelessly pounded her tiny fists against his finger. "Maybe it's time we put her away for the night."

Lori gulped.  _Put me away?_ She could only dread what Lincoln meant by that, but she figured she was about to find out, whether she liked it or not.

With Lori squirming in his fist, Lincoln crossed over to the other side of the room, towards the fireplace. Resting atop the mantelpiece was an empty, lidded glass jar, with a label that read "'Big' Sister" on the side.

"You can't do this to me!" Lori yelled, thrashing about as Lincoln pinched her by her shirt collar, unlidded the jar and dangled her over it. "I'm the oldest! You have to do what I say!"

Lincoln, not even bothering to respond with anything more than an eye roll, dropped her into the jar. Lori, desperate to reclaim her freedom while she still could, tried to jump out of the jar, only to find that she couldn't jump nearly high enough to clear it. At most, her fingers could barely graze the rim. The tallest child in the Loud House was now too puny to escape from a foot-tall container.

Lincoln just sighed, shook his head and slapped the lid on the jar, sealing her inside. Lori could do nothing but watch aghast as he walked back to the center of the room to join his other sisters. Lori knew that, with her out of the picture, the kids would start spiraling out of control any minute now.

But as she looked through the glass, the scene she saw play out was just as tranquil and mellow as the one she walked in on a moment ago. Lily was playing with blocks, Lisa was helping Lynn with her homework, the twins were playing checkers, Lucy was reading a book, Lincoln was playing his 3DS, Luan was in the kitchen making pot pies for dinner, Luna was listening to music, and Leni was filing her nails. There wasn't a single thing going on that she could find objectionable. Lori's heart sank like a stone once the reality of the situation dawned on her.

They  _didn't_  need her. Not anymore. One moment she was the respected, authoritative head of the household, the next she was an ornament on the mantelpiece with a size to match her significance.

Lori's tiny body started trembling with rage, a recalcitrant refusal to accept this new reality welling inside her. She wouldn't accept it. She  _couldn't_ accept it.

Lori screamed at the top of her lungs and started jumping around and ramming her fists against the glass wall. None of her younger siblings even troubled themselves to look her way, either because they couldn't hear her through the jar or because they cared that little about her grievances.

With her fury still swelling, Lori charged at the wall and rammed herself into it, over and over again - an action that would prove to be rather unwise just a few seconds later. For one thing, it still failed to attract the attention of any of her siblings. More importantly, after ramming the wall for the fifth or sixth time, Lori started to feel the floor beneath her wobbling about. She looked down to see the bottom of the jar angled precariously over the edge of the mantelpiece. It seemed that, in the midst of her tantrum, Lori had failed to notice that she was moving the jar further and further away from the wall.

All of her anger in that moment was overtaken by dread, and she frantically ran back towards the other end, trying to rebalance the jar. But by that point, it was too late. After teetering on the edge for a fraction of a second, the jar slipped off the mantelpiece and plummeted downward.

The sound of glass shattering against the floor was the last thing Lori heard before she woke up.


	2. Lori

If there was one thing Leni loved about going back to school, it was showing off her new clothes to her peers. Every year, Leni spend the weekend before the first day going on a marathon shopping spree at the mall, picking out the cutest dresses and accessories she could find and compiling them into a chic, fashionable, eye-catching back-to-school ensemble.

Such was the case this year, when the strutted into her homeroom decked out in a teal dress and a matching skirt that came dangerously close to breaking the school's dress code, along with a pair of white, velvety heels that made sharp, percussive clicking noises as they struck the tiles of the floor. On top of that, she had just received a haircut the day before, one that shortened her bangs and "opened up her face", as the barber put it, so there was no way her classmates wouldn't notice at least  _something_ different about her.

"So what do you guys think of my back-to-school outfit?" asked Leni, strutting in front of the class. "Pretty hot, right?"

Leni's big, shining smile started to dim a little when she heard the response. In lieu of the glowing, enthusiastic compliments she expected, she heard a few muffled giggles scattered throughout the rows.

"Oh, s-sure, Leni," said one boy, choking back a chuckle. "You look... great.  _*snort*_ "

Leni cast him a wary look. "Ooookay," she said, her smile now all but completely gone.

"Oh, don't mind him," said the girl next to him. "He's just being closed-minded. I think your outfit's fine. Really... you know... retro.  _*snicker*_ "

Leni eyed her confusedly.

"What are you talking about? It's just a regular - OH MY GOD!"

Leni looked down and, to her horror, saw that both of her calves were enveloped by two fuzzy teal leg warmers. The muffled giggles around the class erupted into full, unbridled guffaws.

"W-what?!" she cried, aghast that she was even touching such a dated, tacky crime against fashion. "I don't remember putting those on! Or buying them! Or even  _seeing_ them!"

Sadly, her protests did nothing to weather the storm of laughter buffeting her from all sides of the classroom.

"I swear, I don't!" she cried, raising her voice above the din. "These aren't mine! See, I'll take them off, like, right now!"

Leni kicked off her left shoe, sending it skittering across the classroom, grabbed the end of the leg warmer near her ankle and gave it a tug. Much to her frustration, it didn't budge.

"Mmmf!" she grunted, pulling harder and harder to no avail. The leg warmer was wrapped tight around her limb, clinging to it like a second skin. "Who... what... how did I even get these  _on_?!"

The scattered giggling and tittering across the classroom only fueled her efforts. With her teeth clenched and splotches of red forming on her cheeks, she grabbed the end of the leg warmer with both hands and pulled with every inch of her might. Eventually, her efforts sent her toppling off her feet and onto the floor below. The entire class was now treated to the sight of a student rolling around on the floor and straining against the unyielding fabric, letting out a long series of pained grunts that were starting to devolve into screams. At no point did it occur to her to ask someone for help, but it wasn't likely that anyone would step in if she did.

Finally, with one good, hardy yank, she managed to pull one end of the garment up over her foot. She sighed with relief as she looked down to evaluate the progress she made. But that feeling of relief was extinguished once she saw that the  _other_ end of the leg warmer was still wrapped taut around her thigh.

Wait, her  _thigh_? Weren't leg warmers only supposed to cover the area from your ankle to your knee? In fact, Leni could have sworn that the leg warmers  _did_ only come up to her knees the last time she checked. She would have noticed if they were longer. What was happening?

Leni gave her eyes a good rubbing, convinced that she was only seeing things. Once she opened them again, though, she saw that the top end of the leg warmer was still wrapped snug around her thigh. What's more, her ears picked up a faint rustling sound coming from the garment. She bent forward to take a closer look, and nearly choked on her own tongue when she found the source. The leg warmer's gaping leg hole was snaking its way up her thigh, like a boa constrictor swallowing its prey.

"Wha-  _what is this thing_?!" she shrieked. "Somebody get them off me! Give me, like, a knife or some scissors or  _something_!"

But nobody came to her aid, and before she knew it, both of the leg warmers were wrapped tightly around her entire limbs, from upper thigh to toe. And worse, they were getting tighter. The garments that were already far too small for her were starting to shrink around her legs, putting them in a deathly grip. Leni could do little but scream, flail her legs about and bang her fists on the floor, as the pain made it impossible for her to stand back up.

"WHY ISN'T ANYONE DOING ANYTHING?!" she shouted as the leg warmers continued to put the squeeze on her poor legs. Eventually, the compressive force proved to be too great for her legs to resist - and they gave in. A sickening crunch was heard, along with a stomach-churning gurgling noise comparable to the sound of a truck running through mud. Leni howled in agony as she felt her quadriceps and calves get crushed, flattened and juiced. What were once a pair of thick, healthy, strong legs were being reduced to a withered pair of husks that couldn't support the weight of a toddler, much less a teenage girl.

It was at this point that the teacher, who had been silent since she entered the classroom, finally decided to stand up and address the other students.

"Class," he said, "it is now feeding time."

Before Leni could even ask for whom, the teacher spun around to face her, looking down at the now-helpless girl with a maniacal grin and fire in his eyes. He let his jaw drop open, and out from the depths of his throat came four hairy, grotesque spiders.

"NOT SPIDERS!" yelled Leni. "A-anything but spiders! Somebody get them away from me!"

Leni, with her legs now rendered useless, frantically pushed herself across the room with her hands, desperate to escape the abhorrent arachnids. As she neared the wall on the other side, she saw the teacher take a jar off his desk and dump its contents - a thick, opaque, orange liquid - onto the floor below. The spiders all descended from his body and started lapping the liquid up. Beaming, the professor set the jar back on his desk, and Leni's heart sank as soon as she caught a glimpse of the label:

_Super Spider Growy Stuff_

Sure enough, as they sucked the liquid down their throats, all four of the spiders' bodies started to swell and expand. Bigger and bigger they grew, making their grotesque facial and bodily features all the more visible to poor Leni. Each one inflated past the size of a tennis ball, then a football, then a basketball, then a fully loaded backpack, until the crowded classroom started to feel a bit too cramped for them. To make some room, one of the now human-sized spiders used its scaled up strength to grab the teacher's desk and toss it out the window.

And just when Leni thought her situation couldn't get any worse, that same spider then turned its beady eyes - all eight of them - towards her.

"Look over here, fellow spiders," it said in a slimy, slithery voice. "It's a helpless human girl. What shall we do with her?"

With her overtaxed heart working double time, Leni scrambled away from the spiders, only to find her path impeded by the wall. She curled into a ball and whimpered as the four enormous spiders closed in on her. Leni couldn't decide what she found more repulsive - the thick, coarse hair coating each of their spindly legs, or the stench of insect carcasses emanating from each of their mouths. Or those eyes... dear lord, those eyes. As far as Leni was concerned, eight was far more than any creature needed, and the thirty-two total she saw resting upon her didn't even have pupils, or irises, or  _anything_. Just black, hollow, featureless voids.

"Perhaps we could enslave her!" said the first spider.

"Or eat her!" said the second one.

"Or enslave her and  _then_ eat her!" said the third one.

"Or eat her and then enslave her!" said the fourth one, prompting the other three to cast a peculiar look in its direction.

"...Okay, that last one didn't really make sense," admitted the fourth one. "Whatever. The point is that  _she's ours now_."

The fourth one then turned its back to Leni and expelled a thick stand of web out from its spinneret, which wound itself around Leni's ruined legs and bound them together. Leni bent forward and tried to tear the silk with her hands, but it was too tough, too fibrous, too sinewy for her to break a single strand. All she could do was get her hands hopelessly tangled and stuck to the freshly spun web.

The fourth spider, whose web was still attached to its spinneret, skittered out of the classroom, dragging the now-immobilized Leni out of the room and into the hall.

"HELP ME!" Leni screamed. "DON'T LET THE SPIDER TAKE ME AWAY!"

But Leni received no response, aside from the cackling of the spider dragging her. "Mmm, scream louder, human. It whets my appetite."

Leni wasn't typically inclined to heed a spider's request, but in her position, screaming was all she could do - so scream she did. Over and over, hoping vainly that someone,  _anyone_ , would heed her call, until her larynx collapsed from the pressure.

"Ohh, yeah, that's the stuff," whispered the spider, giving off a shudder of pleasure that caused the web to vibrate. "But enough stalling. It's time to wave goodbye to your friends, human."

It was then that the spider reached its destination at the end of the hall - the janitor's closet, which just happened to be open. Leni, hopelessly ensnared and too hoarse to even speak, gave the world she knew one last glance until it faded into blackness.

The sound of the closet door slamming behind her was the last thing she heard before she woke up.


	3. Luna

Luna lay herself back on her bed, idly plucking away at her guitar. It was February 12, the night of the Grammy Awards - an event that Luna, by all accounts, should have been eagerly anticipating. This year, though, she didn't really feel bothered to tune in. Few of the performing artists and nominees were there to represent her favorite genres - namely, hard rock and old school R&B - and she didn't care for the gloomy trap and midtempo pop that defined mainstream music nowadays. She knew that some of her siblings would probably be watching the show downstairs, but this was a night she was perfectly content to spend with her ax.

But then...

"Luna, get down here!" Rita called from upstairs.

Luna's ears perked up. "What's up, Mom?" she called back.

"They're honoring you on TV! Come see for yourself!"

Luna's eyebrows jumped at the thought. Honoring  _her_? For what? As far as she knew, she hadn't done anything newsworthy in recent memory. Granted, she was pretty handy with her axe (and a few other instruments), but that alone didn't merit national attention, did it?

Regardless, she didn't think her own mother would lie to her, so she put down her guitar, left her room and bounded down the stairs to see what she was talking about. When she reached the bottom step, she saw her parents, along with Lincoln, Lori and Luan, gathered together on the couch and beaming with pride. The TV was tuned to CBS, and displayed an image of a tuxedo-clad Mick Swagger standing behind a podium, caressing a Grammy Award statuette with his left hand.

Luna broke into the biggest grin her face was capable of accommodating. "Mick Swagger?! At the Grammys?! Honoring  _me_?!"

Luna couldn't believe that, of all the blogs she read about the ceremony, none of them bothered to mention that Mick Swagger was showing up as a presenter. She'd leave a strongly-worded comment on those blogs later that night, but for now, she had to hear what her hero had to say about her. She came forward and plopped herself on the floor right in front of the TV, putting her as close to the moment as possible.

" _Now, I met Luna Loud at a family fun fair not too long ago,_ " said Mick. " _I've met some talented birds in my time, but Luna, mate, she just blew me away."_

At this point, Luna had her hands clasped in front of her, and was trembling with excitement.

" _Her tone, her improvisation, her command of that instrument... you should've heard it, mates, you really should've. She's gonna go on to break records and change lives all across the globe."_

Mick Swagger then turned to the camera, causing goosebumps to sprout all over Luna's skin.

" _Luna, luv, if you're watching this right now, I want you to know that I, Mick Swagger..."_

The rockstar took a pause, and Luna waited with bated breath for him to complete his sentence. Any second now, his words would cement her as a future legend.

But after the beat, Luna saw her idol's warm smile twist itself into a haughty smirk.

" _...am totally taking the piss, wankers!_ _"_

And just like that, the corners of Luna's mouth fell to the floor, along with the bottom part of her jaw. She was flummoxed by the sheer level of derision and scorn that entered Mick Swagger's voice at that very moment.

 _"Did you really think I'd put my clout behind some random pillock from Nowhere, Michigan?!"_ he cackled. " _Luna's not a legend in the making! She's the kind of girl who'll end up plucking her electric twanger on the sidewalk for shillings!"_

Luna's body and mind froze up, refusing to accept a reality in which her idol could be so spiteful and needlessly cruel.

 _"And nobody cares about the kind of music she plays, anyway!"_ he continued.  _"Have you seen the nominees and performers lined up for tonight? Bloody hell, I don't even know why I'm here!"_

When Luna found the wherewithal to move again, her first instinct was to tear off her ears to punish them for relaying a message so foul. She wouldn't tolerate  _anyone_ trash-talking the power of rock in her presence, least of all the man who inspired her to pursue it.

Fortunately, she ignored that first instinct, and instead went with her second one: turning off the television. She snatched the remote off the floor and whacked the power button as hard as she could.

And nothing happened.

She whacked it a few more times, to the same result. No matter what she tried - lowering the volume, muting the set, changing the channel - nothing she was doing could mute the contemptuous cackling of Mick Swagger.

" _Oi! I think she's tryin' to turn off the telly!"_ cried Mick.

Luna froze up again and let the remote fall to the floor with a clatter, as all the color drained itself from her face.

 _"What's the matter, Luna? Afraid of a little dose of truth?"_ asked Mick.  _"Well, if you're not gonna listen to me, maybe you'll listen to yourself."_

Luna's heart lodged itself in her throat, and remained there for an excruciating spell as she waited for Mick Swagger to clarify that statement. For that moment, all that could be heard was the assorted laughing and jeering from the Grammy Award attendees: hundreds of the wealthiest and most famous people on the planet, united in their derision for one fifteen-year-old aspiring musician.

Then, Mick Swagger walked up to the camera, closer and closer, until his face took up the entire frame. He parted his blinding bangs, revealing his malice-tinted eyes.

"Look behind you, Luna."

Against her better judgment, Luna looked over her shoulder, and saw that the family members who were on the couch just a minute ago had disappeared. In their place was a decrepit old woman, wiry and frail-looking, with short, wispy brown hair. She wore a black t-shirt with a skull on it that was big enough to reach her knees, and on her lap sat a rusty, withered purple electric guitar.

"Your idol speaks the truth, luv," she croaked out. "I grew up thinking my talent was going to take me places. What a fool I was."

Luna jumped to her feet and jabbed a defiant finger at the old woman. "You're WRONG!" she hollered. "I'm not gonna end up like you, you... you old fart! I'll practice and rehearse and never give up!"

The old woman laughed mirthlessly. "You think you're the only one in the world who practices and works hard?" she asked. "Lots of people do. Some people play until their fingers fall off."

She then lifted a hand off her axe and held it aloft for Luna to see. Luna watched aghast as the old woman's bony, brittle fingers sloughed off her hand and crumbled into dust, as if they were sculpted out of dry sand.

"And they all go on to be  _nobody you've ever heard of_ ," she said, venom entering her tone. And as contempt possessed her voice, so to did it possess her face; her thin, chapped lips twisted up into a malevolent grin.

"You'll never make it, Luna. You won't even get Sam to like you."

Luna's eyebrows arched downward, as her teeth clenched together and her hands balled themselves into fists. The indignation that'd been welling in her gut ever since the conversation began was getting harder and harder to repress. "Leave. Her.  _Out_ of this," she growled.

But the old crone, apparently, couldn't resist the urge to deliver one more zinger.

" _Too bad she prefers blokes._ "

At that moment, Luna exploded, rage hotwiring her body as she stomped over to the old woman. "SHUT UP!" she bellowed, smacking her hard against the face. Luna could feel the woman's fragile body crumple from the blow, which in any other situation would have been her cue to pull her punches and apologize. Instead, she just left her laid out on the couch, turned away and started stomping back to her room, unable to take another moment of the old woman's sickening words.

"I'll show her," Luna grumbled to herself. "I'll show everyone! I'll... I'l be the best that ever was!"

Luna intended to spend the next hour or so shredding like a maniac, channeling her anger into her ax and producing a sound that would blow all of her haters and doubters away. But just as she reached her room and grabbed the doorknob, she felt a rigid, icy claw grip her by the ankle and sink its nails into her Achilles' tendon. Luna shrieked in pain as the claw pierced her skin, and shuddered at the sensation of warm blood dribbling down her heel. When she looked down to find the source of the pain, she saw the old woman crawling across the floor, her mouth open in a grim howl that displayed rows of jagged, chipped, decaying teeth.

"You'll be nothing, Luna! Nothing!  _Nothing! **NOTHING!**_ "

And that was the last thing Luna heard before she woke up.


	4. Luan

Luan jittered with excitement as she hid behind the curtain, causing it to rustle. After making her triumphant debut at the Chortle Cave, she was called back for an encore performance the following week, which she agreed to with no hesitation. This time around, her entire family, parents included, was in attendance, and she knew that they'd be expecting a lot from her. Regardless, she reassured herself that if she just stuck to her strongest material, she'd be fine.

She allowed herself a peek through the curtain, and was a little disappointed to find that her family was sitting too far back for her to see. Granted, she was there to make  _everyone_ in the audience laugh, but she was hoping to see the reactions of those closest to her. Nothing lifted her spirits like a chuckle from her loving, supportive family. Regardless, she just told herself that they'd have plenty of time to praise her after the show.

A light, bouncy piano jingle started up, and that was Luan's cue to storm the stage. Flashing her biggest smile, she strutted through the curtain, snatched up the microphone, and waited for the jingle to fade out. Once it did, she decided to open with a tried-and-true classic:

"I just flew in here from Royal Woods, and boy, are my arms tired!"

...

...

...

As an experienced performer, Luan had gotten into the habit of allowing herself a pause after a joke, to give the audience a chance to laugh. This time, though, there was no response during that pause. Not a single peep from the audience was heard. Luan wasn't expecting her opening line to bring the house down, but she expecting more of a reaction than  _this_.

 _I guess that one doesn't really work, since I'm still_ _in_ _Royal Woods_ , Luan reasoned to herself.  _Lemme try something else._

"Sorry if I'm a little late," she said. "I had to spend a few hours in gridlock. And then I left  _congress_."

...

Once again, Luan's quip was met with dead silence from the audience.

"Heh, tough crowd," she muttered, tugging at the collar of her blouse.

_Okay, political humor's not cutting it. Maybe I'll just stick to my usual material._

"How many psychiatrists does it take to change a lightbulb?...Just one, but the lightbulb has to  _want_ to change!"

...

Again, nary a sound was heard from the audience. The Chortle Portal was so utterly bereft of noise that Luan swore she could hear a faucet dripping in the upstairs bathroom. Truth be told, Luan was a little puzzled. As a performer, she was no stranger to the experience of bombing, but never before had she encountered an audience this apathetic. Furthermore, the audience at the Chortle Portal during he last performance was quite lively. What happened between then and now?

Whatever the case was, Luan decided to soldier on.

"What kind of music do mummies listen to?... _Wrap_!"

...

Usually, a pun that bad would at least provoke a groan if she told it at home in front of her siblings. But, once again, her audience responded to her joke with stony, unflinching silence. At the very least, she thought her family in attendance would muster up the occasional giggle for her sake, but apparently, she was wrong.

"What's brown and sticky?! A  _stick_!" she spouted off. "What do you get when you drop a piano down a mine shaft?!  _A flat miner_! Why do seagulls fly over the sea?!  _Because if they flew over the bay, they'd be bagels_!"

Joke after joke after joke, each one delivered with less patience than the last. But no matter what she said, nothing seemed to be breaking the audience's vow of silence.

"Geez Louise, what is  _wrong_ with you people?!" she spat. "What do I have to do to get a reaction out of you? Pledge my allegiance to Donald Trump?"

...

"Oh,  _come on_! That doesn't offend you?!"

At this point, Luan had given up trying to make the audience laugh, and was ready to settle for  _any_  kind of response, no matter how negative. A gasp. A boo. A hiss. A cry of, "Get off the stage, loser!"

Anything.  _Anything._

"Do you feel good about yourselves?" asked Luan, giving the crowd a scolding scowl and crossing her arms. "That this is how you've decided to spend your Saturday night? Is this what your idea of fun is?"

...

...

"You know what? I didn't want to have to do this, but you all left me no choice."

Luan threw the mic stand aside and stepped downstage, cracking her knuckles. "It's time to go Don Rickles on all of you."

Luan jumped off the stage and stomped over to a well-dressed gentleman sitting at a nearby table. The spotlight was still projected on the stage, so she could scarcely see him through the darkness, but at that point she really didn't care.

"Hey, everyone, look at this bozo over here!" she cried, her voice seized by vitriol. "Got allllll dressed up in his best suit, just so he could come to my show and daydream! Gosh, I wonder what he's thinking about?  _Counting his money_?"

Much to her frustration, her words elicited no reaction whatsoever from the man. He didn't even turn his head. He just continued to sit with his hands folded in his lap, eyes pointed towards the stage.

" _Answer me_!"

Luan reared back her open hand and threw it forward, giving him a hard slap across the face. A stinging pain shot up from her fingers as soon as they struck the surface, which, much to her shock, was cold, unyielding, and gravelly.

"W-what the heck?!" she yelped, clutching her aching hand. "Who... what are you?!"

Once the pain in her hand died down, she reached it back over towards the man's face and rubbed her fingers against it.

Icy. Rigid. Coarse.

She was haranguing a statue.

With her heart rate accelerating, Luan looked to her right, and saw a middle-aged lady in a sundress at the same table, who, like the gentleman, sat completely motionless. She reached her trembling hand towards her, caressed her face, and found it to be just as stony as that of the gentleman.

Luan bolted from the table, knocking over a couple of empty chairs in the process, and started running around the Chortle Portal, in search of a single audience member who could explain what was happening. Much to her dismay, there was nary a person in attendance who was any more lifelike than the gentleman she confronted. Table after table of inanimate chunks of granite, sitting with their chiseled hands folded across their chiseled laps.

"Mom? Dad?" she called into the darkness, suddenly remembering that her family had come to see her. "Lori? Luna? What's going on?!"

But even after she repeated herself again and again - even calling out every single one of her siblings by name - nobody from her family answered her call.

 _I'm the only one here alive!_ , she thought.  _How can they not hear me?!_

The young comedienne would get her answer once she arrived at their table. What she saw caused her throat to dry up and start to swell shut, leaving her short of breath. Everyone at the table, both parent and sibling, was sitting in the exact same pose: feet planted on the floor, hands folded in the lap. And none of them were moving so much as a millimeter. With her entire body convulsing, Luan grabbed herself by the wrist and forced her hand over towards her mother's face, desperate to reassure herself that this was all some sort of elaborate prank. But her mother's skin, as she feared, had the unmistakable texture of cold, lifeless marble.

Before she could even start to process what happened, she heard a voice calling out to her from the stage, one that sounded eerily similar to her own:

"Looks like you've got the audience  _bored stiff_!"

Luan gasped and whipped around towards the stage. To her bewilderment, she saw the stage spotlight shining down on her dummy, Mr. Coconuts, who was gripping the microphone in his tiny hands.

"Can't say I blame 'em," sneered Mr. Coconuts. "You'd have to be a real  _dummy_ to come to this show. I should know!"

Luan, still reeling from the shock of seeing her family petrified, barely managed to eke out a retort.

"T...that's not funny..."

Mr. Coconuts rolled his painted-on eyes. "Oh, right, because  _you're_ the comedy expert here. You've left everyone in the club  _stone-faced_!"

The dummy's lower jaw bobbed up and down as he let out a haughty laugh. "Get it?! 'Stone faced'?! HA HA HA HA HA HA!"

Each laugh felt like a stinging nettle piercing Luan's heart. As her breathing became even more labored, the young teen's face scrunched up and tears started to well up in her eyes.

"S-shut up!" she cried. "Stop laughing at me!"

"But I thought you  _wanted_ to be laughed at!" taunted Mr. Coconuts, who followed up his remark with another string of malevolent laughter. Then, just to further embellish his sadistic glee, he started dancing a jig around the stage, hopping up and down while somehow keeping his gaze perpetually focused on Luan.

"Luan isn't fun-ny, Luan isn't fun-ny!" he sang.

"SHUT UP!" Luan screamed with tears streaming down her face. "SHUT UP AND GO AWAY!"

To her surprise, her words were actually heeded by the dummy, as he stopped dancing, planted his feet on the floor and let his arms fall to his sides.

"If you insist."

A thick plume of white smoke rose up from the stage, and when the smoke dissipated, Mr. Coconuts was nowhere to be seen. Luan was relieved to hear the teasing stop, but any relief that she felt was quelched once the thick, suffocating fog of silence started to settle back in.

"W-wait! I change my mind!" she cried, running up to the stage. "Come back!  _Come back_!"

The sound of her voice echoing throughout the halls of the club only served to reinforce how vast and empty it was. What was supposed to be a place of merriment and leisure was a lifeless, endless abyss.

Luan stopped just before the stage and dropped to her knees, wrapping her shivering arms around herself and choking out labored sobs. The girl couldn't bring herself to get back up on the stage and face that endless sea of dead, stone-carved eyes, incapable of displaying even the faintest sign of amusement.

"Come back," she whimpered, falling into a fetal position. "I don't want to be alone..."

Her sobbing degenerated into weeping, then full-on bawling, as if she could somehow cause the statues to stir by crying loudly enough.

"I DON'T WANT TO BE ALONE!" she wailed into the darkness, desperate to be heard.  **"I DON'T WANT TO BE ALONE!"**

The sound of her own crying was the last thing she heard before she woke up.


	5. Lynn

It was a task that took an entire summer's worth of planning, several trips to the hardware store, hours in the garage, and countless spent allowances, but by the end of August, Lynn had finally done it. She had constructed a decent-sized boxing ring in the backyard. Roughly 12 feet by 15, with a two-foot wooden platform covered with a couple inches of padding, and four wooden posts in the corners bound together by three tightly bound strands of nylon rope. By Lisa's estimation, she had saved at least a thousand dollars by building it herself instead of buying a pre-made one online.

And now, it was time to test it out.

Lynn hopped up onto the ring and climbed over the ropes, clad in a black sports bra and mesh shorts that left little to the imagination. The humidity was already making her sweat a bit, which imbued her body with a luminous sheen that accentuated the contours of her taut, muscular body. In the corner opposite her sat her apprehensive opponent: her comparatively puny little brother, Lincoln.

There was no singular reason why she so often gravitated towards Lincoln when it came to picking a sparring partner. It was partly because he was the only one too cowed by her to say "no", partly because of the thrill she got from beating boys, and parly because he had a surprisingly high tolerance for pain. With most of her other sisters, she felt like she constantly had to hold back, but Lincoln could take almost anything she could dish out. She couldn't even remember the last time she made him cry.

But that didn't make him any less nervous about the upcoming round. As he rose to his feet, his knees started knocking together, which only called attention to his scrawny chicken legs. Lynn smirked, assumed a boxing stance and flexed her meaty thighs, which looked to be at least twice as thick as his.

"Ready to go, little bro?" asked Lynn.

"Um...I-I guess?" stammered Lincoln, forcing himself into a boxing stance that mirrored hers and shuffling into the center of the ring.

"You better be," said Lynn. "Ding, ding."

Lynn lunged at Lincoln, who responded by throwing up his fists in self-defense. Lynn, undeterred, came out swinging with a vicious series of hooks, putting pressure on the boy and causing his block to crumble. Lincoln managed to duck under one of them, and tried to return fire with a hasty jab to the midsection. Much to his chagrin, Lynn's washboard stomach easily absorbed the blow. Before he could go back on the defensive, Lynn nailed him with a flurry of stinging blows, capped off with a thunderous cross to the face that knocked Lincoln off-kilter.

Lynn, ever the tactician, gave Lincoln a moment to recover before making her next move. He stumbled about for a few seconds, clutching his head before pushing himself back up into a standing position. Just as he was starting to turn back towards Lynn, she socked him in the chest with a haymaker that sent him flying into the corner with a blunt  _thump_. Lincoln groaned in pain upon hitting the post.

This time, Lynn was determined to keep the pressure on, and she charged towards Lincoln, locking him in the corner. Lincoln yelped and threw up his fists in front of his face, and Lynn responded with a few underhand shots to his unguarded gut. Just as Lynn intended, the pain caused his guard to falter and shrink, giving her an opening for a knockout blow. With a glint in her eye, she stepped back, cocked her right fist, and sent it rocketing towards Lincoln's face. The next thing she heard was the dull  _thud_ of her gloved fist colliding with wood.

_I missed?!_

Lynn looked forward to see that her brother had somehow managed to duck out of the corner in the split second she took to wind up. When she spun around to face him, she was immediately clocked by a sharp uppercut that sent her reeling backwards into the corner. Lynn let out a painful hiss as her back collided with the un-padded wooden surface; she was sorely regretting her decision to leave the posts uncushioned to save money.

But that was the least of her concerns now. Before she could even process what had just happened to her, Lincoln glided over to her and buffeted her with rapid jabs and crosses. Lynn could feel her muscles start to get worn down by the assault, and she threw out a hard uppercut in an attempt to break the combo and stop Lincoln's momentum. Lincoln swung back, just barely dodging it.

This, at least, freed Lynn from the corner, and she tried to capitalize by putting Lincoln back on the defensive. She hurled another punch his way, but this, too, was dodged, and the force behind her whiff threw her a bit off-balance. Before she could get her bearings straight, he leaped up into the air and hammered her in the cheek with the strongest cross he was capable of throwing. Lynn, unprepared for such a blow, spun around and fell face-first onto the mat.

Lynn could scarcely believe that, just a minute into the match,  _she_ was the one tasting the mat. All she wanted to do was knock around her wimpy little brother for a little while. Where was he even  _getting_ this from?

Regardless, she wasn't going to let her first match in the ring be a loss. The very idea of her getting outboxed by that comic-obsessed nerd was making her blood boil. She rolled herself under the bottom rope out of the ring, lumbered over to a couple of dumbbells she had set up on the grass, and started pumping them furiously, over and over again.

"C'mon, Lynn! You wanna lose?!" she snared to herself. "You wanna be the mayor of Losertown?!"

As she lifted, her already toned biceps started to throb and swell. The young tomboy, drenched with an ever- increasing torrent of sweat, seemed determined to cram as much mass into her arms as they were capable of containing. And it was working. Her enraged iron-pumping was making her biceps expand like two fleshy balloons, until they were nearly the size of softballs.

" _Much_ better," she said with a dark chuckle, letting the dumbbells drop from her hands.

The newly pumped Lynn stormed the ring, hopped onto the platform, and used her beefed up arms to pull herself up over the post and into the ring. For the briefest of moments, Lynn saw a twinge of smugness in Lincoln's expression, which vanished as soon as he caught sight of her.

"L-L-Lynn, w-wait," he stuttered, looking ready to empty his bladder as Lynn marched up to him. "I-I... maybe we shouldn't- LYNN, NO!"

Lynn, refusing to entertain his pleas for mercy, delivered an earth-shaking uppercut, which let out a deafening, sickening  _crack_ as it collided with his chin. Lynn felt a glimmer of satisfaction upon hearing the impact; in all of her bouts in the ring, she had never heard a punch create such a piercing sound.

But there was a reason for that, as she was just about to find out. She looked back at Lincoln, and promptly dropped her stance, letting her fists fall slack at her sides. Lincoln's head had completely left his body, leaving only a jagged, fleshy stump behind.

"I...wha...a...buh...Lin...Lin..."

The now pale-faced jock could do little but sputter out chunks of half-formed syllables, and watch in horror as Lincoln's headless body dropped to its knees and fell forward onto the mat. And if that wasn't enough, a moment later she heard a thump behind her that could only signify the arrival of Lincoln's wayward cranium. She twisted herself around to see, lo and behold, her little brother's head lying at her feet, its face forever frozen in an expression of pure terror.

"Lin-Lin-Lincoln..." babbled Lynn, who was starting to feel lightheaded as a wave of nausea overtook her. The layer of sweat that enveloped her body now felt icy cold, and the warm, fresh air of the suburbs now felt suffocatingly thin. Any moment now, someone would come running into the backyard and see the evidence of her grisly deed lying before her. She could practically hear the inevitable shrieks of horror and outrage from her family echoing in her head.

It wasn't long before she  _did_ hear someone else's voice, but it was one that possessed a calm, measured tone, and belonged to a woman Lynn had never heard before.

"...and we go live to 1216 Franklin Avenue, where 13-year-old Lynn Loud Jr. has just murdered her younger brother via decapitation during what was supposed to be a friendly boxing match."

Lynn whipped around to find the source of the voice, and saw a thirty-something woman clad in a yellow jumpsuit, gripping a microphone and facing a mounted camera. Around her stood a bevy of cameramen, miscellaneous personnel, and nosy bystanders trying to muscle their way into the backyard, producing a collective din of cries, whispers and murmurs. Just beyond the driveway, Lynn spotted a white van that read  _Channel 5 News_ on the side. Lynn just gawked at the scene before her, occasionally flinching from the flash of a camera.

The reporter climbed up into the ring, motioning for her cameraman to follow her. Before Lynn could react, she found herself face-to-face with the newswoman, staring her down and shoving her microphone in her face.

"Now, Lynn, what made you decide to kill your brother?" she asked, her voice laced with thinly veiled contempt.

"I-I didn't mean to!" cried Lynn. "It was- it was an accident!"

None of Lynn's pleading did anything to temper the sternness in the reporter's expression or tone. "Interesting," she said. "Lincoln, why do  _you_ think your sister murdered you?"

The reporter crouched down beside Lynn and held her microphone close to Lincoln's disembodied head. At first, Lynn thought that she was making the darkest joke ever captured on television, but then she looked down and noticed that, when she wasn't looking, Lincoln's face had  _changed_. That expression of horror was now replaced by a scolding scowl.

"You know, I wish I could say that I'm surprised, but I'm not," said Lincoln. "It's like winning is all that matters to her."

_Winning is all that matters to her._

**_Winning is all that matters to_ _her._ **

And that sentence was the last thing Lynn heard before she woke up.


	6. Lucy

_Fear_

_Knees wobbling, weakening, wavering_

_Blood drains from my-_

_From my-_

_..._

_From my-_

_..._

_UGH. Dang it._

* * *

Lucy gripped her pencil in frustration. She struggled to keep her groans internal, so as not to disturb the other students in the school library. Said library was typically a pretty peaceful place, and Lucy often liked to spend time hanging out there after school, so she could work on her poetry. On this day, the library was just as calm and serene as it usually was.

It was the room two stories  _below_ the library that was creating a problem.

Apparently, there was some kind of dance going on in the school gymnasium that Lucy hadn't heard about (not that she would have been interested if she did). The school DJ was playing the music at ear-splitting volumes, as DJs were wont to do, and the din was driving Lucy up the wall. Every time she tried to write another line of her poem, that incessant, monotonous  _thump-a, thump-a, thump-a, thump-a_ beat would break her concentration. She could even make out some of the lyrics from that abhorrent EDM track they were blasting:

_Moist and juicy_

_Moist and juicy_

_Moist and juicy_

_Moistened_ _mound_

_Moist and juicy_

_Moist and juicy_

_Moist and juicy_

_Juicy mound_

Lucy shuddered with revulsion.  _She_ could write better lyrics than that. What did people find catchy about the constant, droning repetition of one disgusting phrase?

After about fifteen minutes of trying to block out the noise, Lucy had had enough. She was going to march down to that gymnasium and tell that DJ to turn it down. She didn't see much likelihood of success, but it was worth a try. She packed her notes into her backpack, left the library, and marched downstairs.

As she descended the stairwell, she could feel the handrail vibrating from the sheer volume of the music. Why did DJs insist on playing their music that loud? Sure, she understood that it had to be loud enough for everyone in the room to hear it, but did it really have to be  _that_ deafening, to the point that nobody in the vicinity could even hear themselves think? It was baffling.

Once she reached the gymnasium, Lucy walked in to find it, as expected, jam-packed. The entire floor was engulfed by a mob of writhing, gyrating grade schoolers, moving in time to a pair of blaring speakers set up on the opposite side. Lucy cringed as she forced herself inside, at the oppressive volume of the music and the utter lack of space for her to breathe. Rooms just weren't designed to accommodate this many people at one time.

"Um, e-excuse me," she muttered, as she tried to maneuver her way across the dance floor towards the DJ on the other side. "I-I have to get through."

She shuddered every time she had to brush up against the dank, sweat-covered body of a dancing classmate. Lucy, an introvert by nature, wasn't used to being close to this many people at one time. As she moved through the crowd, she noticed a few students she was at least acquainted with, but none of them would acknowledge her, so entranced they were by the rhythm.

At long last, she managed to cross the dance floor and arrive at the other side. Once she did, she was greeted with the sight of a set of turntables manned by a basketball jersey-wearing DJ, who looked far too old to be working at a lower school dance.

"Excuse me," said Lucy, in a voice that was barely audible over the din of the music, "but could you please turn down your music? I can hear it from the library. And it's distracting."

Much to her surprise, the DJ actually seemed to acknowledge her. He turned his attention away from his turntables and towards her, giving her a good look at his eyes. They were pupilless, and emitted an eerie sapphire glow that cut through the darkness of the room, though Lucy assumed that he was wearing some fancy pair of glow-in-the-dark contacts. It was harder for her to come up with an explanation for what he did next; instead of answering her question, he began to lip sync along with the song.

It was then that Lucy realized that she had been mishearing the song the entire time, and her blood ran cold as soon as she figured out what it was actually saying.

_Join us, Lucy_

_Join us, Lucy_

_Join us, Lucy_

_Join us now_

_Join us, Lucy_

_Join us, Lucy_

_Join us, Lucy_

_Lucy Loud_

With her flight response triggered, Lucy whipped herself around with the intention of making a mad dash towards the exit. Her path, unfortunately, was blocked by the crowd of dancers - who, she noticed, were no longer dancing. All of them were standing still, turned in her direction, lipping to the song, and leering at her with eyes that glowed the same tint of blue as the DJ. Lucy hoped that they wouldn't actually pursue her, but that hope was squelched as she saw some of them marching up to her, their steps in perfect time with the beat.

Frantically, Lucy tried to dash past them, but before she could make it past the crowd, someone latched their fingers onto her wrist and yanked her backwards. As she was trying to pry those clammy, sweaty fingers off of her, another arm grabbed her shoulder, and yet another grabbed her by the waist. The three arms dragged her kicking and squirming into the center of the mob, and before she knew it, she was swallowed up by an ocean of damp, perspirating flesh.

Lucy tried to push back against the writhing bodies invading her personal space, to no avail. It didn't help that she now heard them chanting, not just lipping, but  _vocalizing_ the lyrics of the song. "Join us, Lucy" was being echoed by what must have been hundreds of voices around the room. Lucy could feel the air around her growing thinner, greedily sucked up and depleted by the dozens of forms surrounding her. She was trapped. She couldn't move. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't-

"I'LL DANCE!" she yelled as loud as she could. "I'll join you. I'll dance."

Seconds later, the dancers unhanded her and backed off, forming a decent-sized circle around her. Lucy sighed, relieved at the sensation of having a bit of space to herself again, though her relief was tempered a bit by the fact that hundreds of eyes were still upon her.

Regardless, Lucy only saw one way out of this predicament. She walked up to the center of the circle, and after a deep breath, performed the only dance step she knew - or, at least, the only one she could perform well. She folded her hands behind her back and started bouncing up and down on her calves, letting her head bob with each bounce.

Lucy repeated the step for a moment or two, when suddenly, she heard the music cut out. That pounding beat just abruptly stopped without so much as a record scratch to signify its end. Lucy paused mid-bounce as her entire body tensed up in anticipation of what was to come.

But there was no way she could have anticipated what  _did_  come.

The dancers' faces transformed from blank stares to furious glares, and their glowing eyes changed from blue to blood red. Once dancer unhinged his jaw and let out a hellish roar of,  **"WRONG!"**

The roar was echoed by another dancer, and then another, until Lucy could hear it coming from all sides of the gymnasium. Lucy crouched down on the floor and clasped her hands over her ears, trying to drown out the noise and praying that it'd eventually let up. As she shrunk away from the crowd, dreading what they were going to do to her, she suddenly felt something moist and slimy splatter against the back of her head. Shivering with revulsion, she ran her fingers through her hair and held them in front of her face. They were now coated in some black, tarry, viscous mass, which was somehow slimy enough to trickle down to her palm but sticky enough to adhere to her skin.

Lucy spun around, ready to accost whoever threw that at her, and came face to face with a furious looking dancer, who had droplets of that same substance dripping from her lips. It didn't take long for Lucy to put two and two together.

Sure enough, the dancer opened her mouth and vomited up a torrent of that black slime right into Lucy's face. Lucy hurriedly backed away from her, but was blindsided by another wave of gunk from another dancer in the circle. Before long, she had half the circle spewing on her, while the other half continued to assault her with repeated bellows of,  **"WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!"**

Lucy, with her clothes ruined and her hope of escaping all but extinguished, sunk down to the floor and curled herself up into a fetal position, making herself as small as possible. She wanted to disappear. Vanish. Cease to exist. Anything to put an end to that incessant roaring in her ears, to the feeling of slime soaking through her dress and clinging to her skin.

"S-stop, please," she mewled, shivering. "L-let me go. L-leave me alone. I want to go home..."

The crowd paid her no heed, and in fact started to edge closer to her, making their collective cries even harder to block out. All the while, they continued to bombard her with balls of sludge, some of which sloughed off her face and trickled into her mouth, making her gag. Silent tears poured from her eyes, as she lost hope that her multi-sensory torment would ever come to a conclusion.

The sensation of one last blast of gunk splattering against her back was the last thing she felt before she woke up.


	7. Lana

Lana sat in the pediatrician's waiting room with her head down, twiddling her fingers. The room was stocked with an assortment of toys, children's books and magazines, but Lana wasn't exactly in the mood for play.

"Cheer up, Lana," said Rita, giving her a pat on the back. "It's just a checkup, that's all. You're not due for any shots."

"I guess," muttered Lana. Even assuming her mother was telling the truth, there was always something unnerving Lana found about the doctor's office. For one thing, she was a bit put off by the overly chipper artwork and decor in the waiting room. The rainbow-colored foam mat in the center, the toys laid out right in front of her, the pictures of smiling doctors lining the walls... it was almost as if the room itself was trying way too hard to cheer her up, or luring her into a false sense of security. And there was little consolation provided by the assortment of cheap, stale lollipops offered to her on the way out - which  _allegedly_ came in several different flavors, but all tasted like sweetened cough syrup to her.

Lana doubted she was the only one who felt that way, because the other kids in the waiting room seemed even less enthralled to be there than she was. Some were whining, some were crying, some were fighting one another, but none of them looked particularly happy.

"Lana Loud?" called a voice from beyond the room.

"Oh, that's you!" said Rita, as if Lana couldn't have figured that out herself. "I'll be waiting for you right out here, Lana. Mommy loves you."

Lana hopped off her chair and walked toward the hallway, with her eyes pointed towards the floor and her hands clasped in front of her. Near the middle of the hall, she was greeted by a thirty-something man in a lab coat, with a bit of stubble on his face.

"Why, hello there!" piped the doctor, beaming down at Lana. "You must be Lana. I'm Dr. Mitchell!"

Lana looked up and gave the doctor a small wave, forcing a polite smile. "H...hi, Doctor Mitchell."

Maintaining his cheery disposition (a little  _too_ cheery to be natural, from Lana's point of view), Dr. Mitchell walked Lana into his office, hoisted her up and plopped her down on the table. "Oof!" he grunted. "You're pretty heavy. Looks like someone's growing to be a big girl!"

Lana rolled her eyes. At six years old, she had already outgrown this kind of condescension. Regardless, she just let the remark pass without comment, as she wanted the session to be over as soon as possible.

"We're gonna start with a few routine checks," he said. He then lightly gripped the end of his stethoscope and pressed it against her chest. "Gimme a deep breath, Lana."

Lana nodded, sucked in a gulp of air and let it out.

"Hmm... okay." Dr. Mitchell moved the stethoscope over onto her back. "Once more, please."

This continued for about a minute, as the doctor ran his stethoscope all over her body and continually asked her to breathe.

"Okay, your breathing sounds pretty normal," said Dr. Mitchell. "Now, let's test your reflexes."

 _My reflexes are fine, thank you very much_ , Lana quipped to herself.  _I'd never be able to survive in the Loud house if they weren't._

But, once again, Lana didn't want to be difficult, so she just let Dr. Mitchell go through with the test. He drew a tiny mallet from the pocket on his lab coat, bent down, and gave Lana a firm rap on the knee. As expected, Lana's leg instinctively kicked forward. He then repeated the motion for the other knee, and got the same result.

"Reflexes are normal," he said. "Now, I'm gonna take your height and weight. Do me a favor and go stand on that scale over there."

He gestured towards a scale set up next to the table - one of those doctors' scales outfitted with a height measuring stick. Lana hopped down from the table, took off her sneakers and stepped on. Dr. Mitchell started by grabbing the measuring stick, pulling it up and stopping it just above Lana's head.

"Three and a half feet," said Dr. Mitchell. "Now, as for your weight..."

Dr. Mitchell shifted around the dials on the scale until he arrived at a reading that caused the scale to balance out.

"Sixty pounds!" exclaimed the doctor. "You're getting even bigger than I thought!"

Even though they were the exact same age, Lana outweighed her dainty twin Lola by almost fifteen pounds. This was understandable; not only did Lana eat like a pig, but her hobbies of alligator wrestling and plumbing (the latter of which involved handling some heavy tools) helped her build a pretty decent level of muscle mass. The only reason Lola could fight evenly with Lana during their scraps was because of the former's liberal use of dirty tactics - biting, scratching, eye gouging, etc.

"Now, let's see if we can do something about that," said the doctor, grunting as he hefted Lana back onto the table.

Lana eyed him confusedly. Do something about  _what_? Her weight? Sixty pounds wasn't heavy enough to be cause for concern, was it?

"Now, hold still for just a moment," he said. "You won't feel a thing."

Lana's expression grew even more concerned. She could've sworn that her parents said that she wasn't getting a shot. What was going on?

"Doctor Mitchell?" she asked, squirming a bit as she felt him roll up her sleeve and lightly grip her by the wrist. "I don't have to get a shot, do I?"

"You won't feel a thing," repeated Dr. Mitchell.

 _That totally didn't answer my question_ , thought Lana. "Doctor Mitchell, I-"

"And done!" said the doctor.

Feeling increasingly uneasy, Lana's eyes drifted over towards her exposed arm, and she gasped at the sight of a hypodermic needle piercing her skin. What was even more shocking was the fact that Dr. Mitchell had actually kept his promise; she  _didn't_ feel a thing. Quite the opposite, in fact. She felt a numbness at the point of contact between the needle and her skin, which was starting to radiate through the rest of her arm. She didn't feel anything when Dr. Mitchell yanked the needle out.

"W-what did you do?!" cried Lana, trying to move her arm away but finding it increasingly difficult to do so. Dr. Mitchell grabbed her by the wrist and looked her in the eye, displaying a frown for the first time since she stepped into the office.

"Your mom and dad have told me a lot about you," said Dr. Mitchell, with sternness creeping into his tone. "Plumbing, fixing cars, wrestling wild animals, eating out of the garbage. These are not things that a good, healthy little girl should be doing."

"Says you!" spat Lana, prying at Dr. Mitchell's fingers with her other hand. "My big brother and sisters say I'm just fine the way... the way ah... the wuh..."

Mid-speech, Lana started to lose the feeling in her tongue. The numbness that had overtaken her entire arm was now starting to affect her face. In a panic, she started grasping at her face with her free hand, only to find that it, too, was having all of its nerves shut down.

"Now, what we're going to do is turn you into a good little girl," said Dr. Mitchell. "A good, healthy little girl who acts how little girls ought to."

Lana, lacking the capability to flee (as the numbness was already spreading to her lower body), watched helplessly as Dr. Mitchell walked to the other side of the room and pulled the black curtain off the apparatus on the other side of the room. It was a table, upon which lay a black, metallic mold in the exact shape of Lana's body, with a door hinged to the side. There were several things Lana wanted to do at that moment - scream for help, run away, and give Dr. Mitchell a swift kick in the groin, just to name a few. But all of them were rendered impossible by the fact that she had lost all sensation in her body. Her brain was now little more than a prisoner locked in an empty, lifeless shell.

Dr. Mitchell picked her up, carried her over and dropped her into the mold, where she landed with a  _thunk_. As she saw the mold's door slam shut and heard the click of Dr. Mitchell locking it down, she was struck with a chilling realization; her mom had lied to her. Her guardian, one of the two people she thought she could trust to take care of her, told her a bald-faced lie, just so the doctor could subject her to...  _whatever_ this was. Lana could only guess what was happening, judging by the constant beeping, whirring and clicking she heard coming from the apparatus, but she knew she wasn't going to like the result.

At long last, the din of the machinery died down, and Lana saw the fluorescent light of the office seep through the darkness as the door was cracked open. Dr. Mitchell gripped her under the arms and hoisted her out of the mold, and Lana was marginally relieved at the fact that she had regained some level of sensation in her body.

"Here's the new you, Lana!" he announced as he set her foot-first on the floor and wheeled a mirror out in front of her.

What Lana saw in the mirror was enough to make even her iron-cast stomach churn in disgust. Her eyes were forced open all the way, accentuated by long, prominent eyelashes and underlined by liberal amounts of blush. Her mouth was locked into a wide, open grin - the kind displayed by cartoon mascots on cereal boxes. Her red cap was gone, and her now-exposed hair was done up in cutesy, springy pigtails. Her overalls were replaced with a canary-yellow sundress, her sneakers with fancy black buckled shoes. As she grasped her frozen face, she noticed that her fingernails were all manicured and polished the same color as her dress.

"Ah, let me see my little Lana!" Rita called from the hallway. She emerged into the room, beaming with pride at what Lana had become. "I think you're  _much_ better this way," she cooed, ruffling Lana's hair. "Don't you agree?"

Lana, feeling bile rising within her throat, wanted nothing more than to spew it at her traitorous mother, berating her for letting Dr. Mitchell mold her into such a monstrosity. But as she prepped her larynx, the following words came out:

"By golly, I sure do, Mama! Let's go home!"

 _By golly? Mama?_ Lana had no idea where these words were coming from, and she wanted to slap herself for talking like that. But when she tried to do so, she found that her arms were stiff and could only move in a rigid back-and-forth motion, like a Barbie doll or a toy soldier. And when she followed Rita out the door, she found herself walking in perfect formation - heel, toe, heel, toe - with her arms swinging at her sides like metronomes. As much as she wanted to run out into the waiting room and yell out a frantic warning to all the kids there, she simply  _couldn't_. She was a good girl now.

The sound of her neat, well-polished black buckle shoes clicking against the hardwood floor was the last thing she heard before she woke up.


	8. Lola

For most young girls, it would be nerve-wracking to stand on stage and get scrutinized by some haughty adults. For Lola? It was business as usual. She'd done this countless times before and she knew exactly what to do. With the sweetest, most inviting smile she could muster - not too big, not too little - she sauntered onto the stage, moving her hips back and forth as she walked.

Even disregarding her extensive pageant experience, Lola knew she had nothing to be nervous about. Just moments ago, she had wowed the judges with a beautifully choreographed baton-twirling act, that ended with her tossing them in the air, doing a handstand and catching them between her  _toes_. None of the other contestants were going to top that - certainly not the girl who tried to follow her act with an insipid, underwritten poem about peace and charity and starving children in some country she'd never heard of.

Looking downstage, Lola found the judging table manned by a single middle-aged woman, with a short bob haircut, inch-long fingernails, and even more makeup than the contestants she was critiquing. Due to the darkness of the auditorium, Lola found it difficult to make out the judge's facial expression, but she assured herself that she would receive nothing but praise, as she usually did.

"Okay, contestant number eight," announced the judge. "Lola Loud, was it?"

"Yes, ma'am," Lola said with a curtsy, batting her eyes.

"Mmm-hmm." The judge took out her notepad, licked her finger and started flipping through the pages.

"Well, darling, your confidence is unshakable," said the judge. "No complaints from me in that department. You know what you got and you know how to  _flaunt_ it."

She flipped to the next page in her notes. "And your attitude? Perfect. Exactly what we want in a pageant queen."

She flipped another page. "Your talent? Remarkable. You definitely know how to twirl those batons, girl."

Lola had to suppress a giggle as her heart fluttered with excitement. The next category - beauty - was by far her favorite. Confidence, attitude and talent were all things you could acquire and cultivate, but beauty was something you either had or you didn't - and Lola most definitely had it. Her big, Bambi-like eyes, her dimples, her cute little button nose... they were all unmistakably  _hers_ , and always would be. Anyone could act like a pageant queen if they practiced enough, but Lola was blessed with the ability to  _look_ like one, and she relished the feeling of self-worth she got when the judges pointed that out.

"Now your beauty, dear," said the judge, "could use a little improvement."

Lola's heart sank, as did the corners of her mouth.  _A little improvement_? Lola had enough experience to know that, in pageant language, "a little improvement" was a polite way to say "a whole lot of improvement".

"First of all, the eyelashes," said the judge. "I was watching you all the way from back here, and even  _I_ could tell that those things were fake."

Lola's stomach lurched. She was right; they  _were_ fake. Lola had some false lashes applied before going on stage, under the impression that they'd make her look cuter. Apparently not.

Figuring that the jig was up, she peeled off the false eyelashes and let them fall to the floor.

"See? No more fakes!" said Lola. "Just my natural, beautiful la-"

"Don't interrupt," snapped the judge, as she flipped through her notepad. "Second of all, let me make something clear," she said, sounding increasingly cold. " _Nobody_ is gonna cross my stage with a mole on her face, like the one you've got on her cheek."

Lola gasped at the word "mole" and instinctively clutched her face. Sure enough, she felt a tiny bump just above her cheekbone. The young girl, mortified that she'd let such a glaring blemish go unnoticed, tried to rub it off with her finger. To her surprise, she felt the bump peel off her face and fall to the floor.

_Huh. Those things just come right off. Who knew?_

"S-see? Mole's gone!" said Lola, her voice trembling. "So  _now_ I'm beautiful, right?"

"Not quite, sister," said the judge. I've got a few more notes."

Lola gulped.

"Let's talk about that chin," the judge said as she pointed towards Lola, her long fingernail jutting out like a bayonet. "It's too sharp. Too angular. It sticks out like a violin. I don't like it."

Lola grabbed her chin, desperate to reassure herself that it wasn't at all like what the judge was describing. Her heart nearly stopped when she heard a piercing  _snap_ from just below her jawline, and she felt an odd-shaped mass fall into her open hand. With her breathing growing heavier, she raised the object up to her face, and was greeted with a sight that confirmed her worst suspicion; her chin had just snapped off.

Instead of delivering the apology Lola thought she was more than entitled to, the judge continued her nitpicking.

"For the record, your cheekbones are also too sharp."

Lola's first instinct was to tell off the judge and stomp out into the main hall, where she'd hopefully find someone who could get her chin reattached. Unfortunately, her body didn't seem too inclined to follow her brain's orders, and her feet remained planted while her hands started moving up towards her cheeks.

 _What am I doing?!_ , she thought.  _Somebody stop me!_

In spite of her internal protests, she felt her fingers, acting of their own accord, latch onto her cheekbones and start pressing down. A sickening crunch was heard as both of them were crushed and flattened.

"Oh, and your ears are too big."

Once again, Lola's hands bowed to the whims of the malevolent judge. Lola grabbed herself by the earlobes, tore them off of from her head like velcro, and cast them to the side.

"And your nose is shaped weird."

Lola gasped.  _Not my nose!_ , she thought as she frantically tried to will her hands away from her face.  _My cheeks and my ears were one thing, but not my nose! Not my adorable little schnozzle!_

But it was no use. Lola cringed as she felt her fingers coil around the bridge of her nose, grip it tight, and snap it off her face like an icicle off a rooftop. She let the severed nose slip from her fingers and started doubling over, dry heaving, nauseated by the sensation of having such an essential feature absent from her face.

"And those teeth!" said the judge. "I don't know who told you that tooth gaps are cute, but they're not. They never have been."

Lola's lips pursed themselves together, in an instinctive attempt to hide her teeth from the prying eyes of the judge. Lola tried to open her mouth again, but she felt her top and bottom lips start to fuse together into one conjoined mass, sealing her teeth off from the world forever.

"Mmf!  _Mmf_!"

In a panic, Lola pried at the bottom part of her face, but felt no sign of an opening or even a seam. Her mouth was gone. Lola's lungs froze in place, apparently realizing that the air stored within had no orifice to exit out of. Her respiratory system was now completely dormant, and yet her body was somehow able to keep itself from suffocating, thus prolonging her torment.

"And another thing," said the judge, prompting Lola's eyes to bulge out in shock. What more could this lady possibly take away from her?

"Your eyes are too green. I don't like green. It's an ugly color."

 _Pop_.

Her eyes jettisoned themselves from her sockets and fell to the floor with a splat, rendering her completely blind. An endless, impregnable sea of blackness surrounded her, leaving her with nothing but the soul-crushing knowledge that the face she was once proud to call her own was now lying in pieces on the floor of the stage. And this pain, this searing pain, was locked tight inside her body. She had no eyes with which to cry, no mouth with which to scream. All she could do was drop to her knees and pound her fists impotently against the wooden stage.

 _YOU MONSTER! LOOK WHAT YOU'VE DONE!_ , she bellowed inside her head.  _YOU'VE RUINED ME! YOU'VE DESTROYED ME! YOU... YOU..._

She ran her hands up and down her face, now a smooth, featureless plane, with all the bumps and contours ironed out. It was like touching freshly sanded wood. All the features and details that made her recognizable, that made her unmistakable, that made her  _Lola_ , were gone.

_My face... my beautiful face..._

That blank, flat surface was the last thing she felt before she woke up.


	9. Lisa

Lisa sat in her mother's lap with her arms folded and her head slightly bowed, wearing an expression that practically screamed  _I would rather be anywhere else_. Beside her sat her father, Lynn Sr., and before her sat Ms. Shrinivas, sitting behind her teacher's desk with her hands folded atop it. Lisa found these monthly parent-teacher conferences exceedingly tedious. Every session played out in the exact same way; "Your daughter has demonstrated exemplary aptitude in every subject," "she's performed far beyond expectations," blah, blah, blah...

On the positive side, Lisa's parents had promised her ice cream afterwards, so she at least had something to look forward to. She just needed to sit still and tune out her teacher for a half hour or so, and it'd all be over...

...or so she thought. Her curiosity was piqued when Ms. Shrinivas began the conference with a sentence that Lisa had never heard her use before:

"I've been having some concerns about your daughter, Lisa."

Lisa's weary eyelids flipped open. What was there to be concerned about?

"She's not having trouble socializing, is she?" asked Lynn Sr.

"Actually, no," said Ms. Shrinivas. "Not anymore, anyway. About a month ago I warned her that I was going to give her an F in Social Skills if she didn't start making friends. But she's made a friend since then, and the two of them get along famously."

This provoked a small smile from Lisa, who felt a glimmer of pride for managing to bond with Darcy Helmandollar, in spite of their vast differences.

"Well, that's good to hear," said Rita. "But if that's not the problem, then what is?"

Ms. Shrinivas sighed. "The problem is with her science experiments."

Rita and Lynn Sr.'s eyes burst open with surprise. "Her science experiments?" asked Rita. "What's wrong with those?"

Ms. Shrinivas sighed again, giving the parents a sympathetic look. "I know that must not be easy to hear," she said. "I'm sure you take plenty of pride in your daughter's scientific aptitude. But her experiments involve handling substances that are both volatile and hazardous."

Her face hardened as she leaned over the desk, looking the parents straight in the eye. "Just a week ago, she almost got a drop of concentrated  _acid_ in Darcy's eye."

"In my defense," said Lisa, "I had warned her several times that-"

"Lisa, shush," interrupted Lynn Sr. "Mommy and Daddy are talking."

Lisa rolled her eyes, but let them return to their conversation, prepared to jump back in if she needed to.

"Even though Darcy wasn't hurt, there's no telling what'll happen the next time one of the other children wanders too close to her."

"What's the big deal?" asked Rita. "Just take away her science equipment. Problem solved."

"Over my dead-" began Lisa, only to be shushed by Rita.

"I'm afraid it won't be that simple," Ms. Shrinivas said with a solemn shake of her head. "I've seen Lisa conduct dangerous experiments with ordinary household objects. Once, during snack time, I saw her use a  _pickle_ to channel electrical current, turning it into a crude light. As soon as I saw it, I warned all the other children not to touch it, but if I hadn't stepped in soon enough, someone could have been electrocuted."

This elicited a gasp from Rita, though Lisa didn't understand why; after all, shouldn't she have already known how dangerous her experiments were?

"It pains me to say this, but Lisa's simply too brilliant for her own good," said Ms. Shrinivas. "We need to put her in an environment where she won't be a threat to herself and others, until she learns some restraint."

Lynn Sr. narrowed his eyes at the teacher. "What are you suggesting, exactly?"

"I'm saying that Lisa needs to be taken out of kindergarten."

Lisa shrugged, figuring that a change in scenery would probably do her some good. True, she'd miss Darcy, but she could just as easily find other students to make friends with.

"I guess we can do that," said Rita. "So where should we put her? Fourth Grade? Fifth? Sixth?"

Ms. Shrinivas maintained her weary, sorrowful frown. "I'm not proposing moving her forward," she said. "I'm proposing moving her  _back_."

Rita let out another gasp, this one twice as big as the last, and threw a hand over her gaping mouth. Meanwhile, Lisa was left in a state of stunned silence, as she struggled to process what she just heard. The idea of a girl with her intellect being held back... no,  _sent_ back a grade was too preposterous for her to comprehend.

" _Back_?" asked Lynn Sr. "You're telling us to send her back to preschool?"

"To be honest, I think even that might be too dangerous," said Ms. Shrinivas. "To truly ensure her safety, we'd have to send her back even further."

"But the only grade below preschool is... is..."

Lynn Sr. seemed to be struggling to finish that sentence, as if the last one or two words got caught in his throat.

"Is what?" asked Lisa, apprehension entering her voice. "Is  _what_?"

This time, her parents didn't even acknowledge her, instead keeping their gazes locked on her teacher.

"Ms. Shrinivas, are you sure that that's the best solution?" asked Rita, her voice breaking.

Ms. Shrinivas looked down at Lisa, her eyes displaying a deep feeling of regret for what she was about to say. "I... I'm afraid it's the  _only_ solution."

Rita and Lynn Sr. nodded, both with looks of quiet resignation etched into their faces. Without another word, she picked Lisa up off her lap and handed her over to the teacher.

"W-what's going on?!" demanded Lisa, wriggling around in Ms. Shrinivas' grip as she carried her out of the room. "Where are you taking me?! I have a right to know the details of this new educational adjustment!"

Ms. Shrinivas didn't say a word - and she didn't have to. Lisa, as it turned out, would get her answer as soon as she saw the teacher arrive at the door at the end of the hall: one labeled "DAYCARE" in cutesy, all-capital bubble letters.

Lisa's stomach churned as Ms. Shrinivas opened the door, to reveal a room scattered with blocks, rocking horses, jack-in-the-boxes, teddy bears and other infantile paraphernalia. The walls were painted with murals depicting overly saccharine scenes of stick-figure children holding hands under a rainbow, while a grinning sun beamed down at them. On one side of the room was a plastic hexagonal multi-colored playpen.

"I'm sorry, Lisa, but this is for your own good," Ms. Shrinivas said with a sigh, as she carried Lisa over to the playpen and dropped her in.

"Ms. Shrinivas, wait!" Lisa cried, as the teacher turned her back and started to exit the room. "There must be a less drastic solution to this problem! I can take additional precautions to-"

"Well, hello there," called a smooth, honey-drenched tenor voice from inside the playpen.

Lisa swiveled around towards the source of the voice, and found a brown teddy bear with a baby blue ribbon around its neck sitting in the middle of the playpen.

"It's so nice to meet you, Lisa," said the teddy bear, rising to its feet and holding out its arms towards her. At its full height, it towered at least a foot over Lisa. "There's always room for more babies here at the daycare."

Lisa, flinched, baffled at how the teddy bear was talking and how it knew her name. "I-I'm sorry, but this is all a big misunderstanding. I was placed here due to the questionable judgment of my kindergarten teacher. I'm not a baby."

The teddy bear raised its stubby hand to its snout, as if to stifle a giggle. "Are you sure?" it asked. "You look like one."

Lisa looked down at herself, and let out a horrified gasp. In lieu of her usual green sweater and khakis, she was now wearing a green baby tee, along with a thick, plush diaper.

"W-what?!" she cried, her face flushed red with shame. "I-I didn't put those on!"

"Well, of course you didn't, silly," said the teddy bear. "Babies are too little to dress themselves."

"T-that's not what I meant!" sputtered Lisa. "I don't know who put me in this puerile outfit, nor do I know their motivation for doing so, but I can say with absolute certainty that I  _am not a baby_."

The teddy bear started advancing towards her, hobbling about on its stubby legs. "But don't you  _want_ to be? Don't you want to drink your milkies and play with big blocks and crawl around in your diapee?"

"No! That all sounds dreadful!" cried Lisa. "And you're supposed to be inanimate!"

The teddy bear waggled its paw at her in a playful scolding gesture. "Tsk, tsk, tsk. Babies aren't supposed to use words that big."

"That's because  _I'm not a baby_!"

Lisa jabbed her finger towards the wall of the playpen. "Now please undo the lock on this containment unit and let me leave!"

But the teddy bear just shook its head. "Oh, no, we don't want that. We need to keep you in a place where we can watch you. What if you make a wetsy, or what if you go boom-boom and fall on your tushy-wushy?"

Lisa cringed at the cutesy language the teddy bear was using. "That's enough!" she spat. "I demand that you address me with the dignity and intelligence I deserve!"

Suddenly, the bear's felt eyebrows arched downward over its button eyes. "What a rude,  _naughty_ baby," it said, its tone shifting from playful to threatening. "I warned you about using big words, but it looks like that wasn't enough. I think someone needs to be  ** _spanked_**."

The bear's voice suddenly dropped an octave on the last word, causing Lisa to jump in her skin. As her frightened eyes were locked upon the bear, she noticed tiny metal claws starting to poke out of its paws. That was all the motivation she needed to make a break for it.

Unfortunately, that would prove to be easier said than done. Due to the bulk of her diaper, she was forced into an awkward waddle, and she only managed to make it a few feet before losing her balance and falling on her butt. Frantically, she pushed herself onto her hands and knees and tried to crawl away, but by then the bear had caught up to her. Lisa felt his paw coil itself around her ankle, and she winced as his small claws nicked her skin.

"You're being very difficult, Lisa," it said sharply. "Seems like I'm going to have to teach you to behave yourself."

"No!" hollered Lisa, her voice cracking. "Get away from me! I'm not a baby! I don't need a spanking!"

Tears started welling up as her protests went unheeded, though she desperately tried to keep them in. The teddy bear lifted her up and carried her over to a small table set up in the center of the playpen, all while she flailed about in its grip. Once there, he took a seat at the table, put Lisa over its knee, and started smacking her on the rear as hard as it could. Lisa bit her lip and clenched her eyes shut as the punishment was doled out, determined not to give it the satisfaction of seeing her cry.

But by the time she had endured the tenth consecutive slap, she was ready to give up. The stinging, agonizing pain was simply too great for her to tolerate. The bear had broken her.

"MOMMY!" she bawled, with hot tears fogging up her glasses and streaming down her cheeks. "MOMMMMMMYYYYYYYYYYY!"

The feeling of the teddy bear's paw striking her one more time was the last thing she felt before she woke up.


	10. Lily

"There we go. All done."

It was late in the evening, and Rita had just finished changing Lily into a fresh diaper - the first step in getting her baby ready for bed. She followed up by blowing a big, wet raspberry on her tummy, prompting an excited giggle from the infant. Though most babies resented being put to bed, Lily had an odd fondness for her bedtime. It was comforting to have Mommy (and sometimes Daddy) button her up in her snug little onesie and tuck her into her crib, where she could shut her eyes, leave all her troubles behind (not that an infant had that many troubles begin with) and drift off into peaceful slumber.

"Okay, Lily, time for bed. Let's get you into your jammies."

But just as she was pulling open the drawer to find a onesie for Lily to sleep in, she heard a call from downstairs.

"Honey?" called Lynn Sr. "Can you get down here? It's... it's urgent."

Rita breathed out a whisper of, "Oh, no," and her eyes darted to the side, her forehead wrinkling with worry.

"You just wait right here, okay, Lily?" she asked, turning back towards the baby and forcing a smile. "Mommy will be right back."

With that, Rita turned about and walked out of the room, wringing her hands.

Babies can be remarkably perceptive when it comes to discerning your emotions, even when you're trying to hide them. Lily, naturally, was no exception. She could practically feel Rita's distress and unease radiating off of her body, and she shuddered to think what could possibly be the source of it. If there was something out there that could scare even Mommy and Daddy, what possible chance did she stand?

Whatever the case was, she had to know. Maybe she could help. At the very least, once she found out what the problem was, she could go back upstairs and tell Lori. Lori was big and strong. She'd be able to do something.

Showing remarkable dexterity for her age, Lily climbed down from the changing table and carefully lowered herself to the floor. She then proceeded to toddle across the room and out the door - which Rita, in her haste, had forgotten to close behind her. Once she got into the hallway, she heard some faint murmuring coming from the living room. Something was  _definitely_ going on.

Before approaching the stairwell, Lily took a momentary glance up and down the hallway, to see if any of her siblings were out and about. Alas, there was not a soul in sight; assumedly, they were all either fast asleep or engaged in some other activity that kept them confined to their rooms. With slight apprehension, Lily waddled to the stairs, knowing that she would have to go this alone.

In the past month or so, Lily had taught herself how to climb down the stairs. First, she'd sit on the edge of the step, with her stubby little legs dangling off. Then, she'd give herself a push forward, bracing her legs right afterward so she'd land on her feet. Then, she'd repeat the process for every subsequent step. It was a tedious process, but it worked.

As Lily descended the stairs, the sound coming from the living room grew clearer and clearer. Once she got a quarter of the way down, she was able to pick up a third sound, in addition to Mommy and Daddy's voices. An  _ugly_ sound. An ungodly, sickening, gurgling sound, like the sound that Lori made when she got sick in the car. Lily felt a pang of fear in her pudgy little tummy, but forced herself to soldier on.

About halfway down the stairs, Lily decided to take a glance through the bars on the handrail. She saw her parents standing side-by-side in the center of the living room, trembling, with their hands clasped in front of them. That gurgling sound was coming from directly in front of them, and getting louder by the second.

As she neared the foot of the stairs, Lily decided to take another peek. At this point, she could finally see what was generating the gurgling sound - and immediately wished she hadn't.

In the center of the room sat a huge, amorphous, blob- like beast, made of mud, purple sludge and debris, with a mouth that took up half its body, two pinholes for nostrils, and two pupil-less red eyes right on the top of its head. It was tall enough to graze the ceiling, and wide enough to take up the entire space between the sofa and the TV, and every errant movement would topple a piece of furniture or knock a picture frame to the floor. Two lumpy, gunky appendages stretched out several feet from its body.

And that gurgling sound was its  _voice_.

" **HUN-GRY** **!** " roared the monster. " **MOR-GAJ STARVING! FEED MOR-GAJ MONEY!** "

Lily gasped, freezing in place. She had heard that name before. Several times, as a matter of fact. It often came up in conversations between Mommy and Daddy, and they always seemed to get nervous and upset whenever they mentioned him. They'd talk about how they have to pay Mor-Gaj every month, or else Mor-Gaj would get angry and take the house away. Lily feared that this Mor-Gaj was a real threat, but she never imagined that she'd be seeing him with her own eyes.

"J-just calm down, Mor-Gaj," stammered Lynn Sr. "We have plenty of money for you."

Lynn Sr., shivering, pulled his wallet out of his pocket, held it upside down and emptied it into Mor-Gaj's mouth. Mor-Gaj greedily gobbled up all the bills and coins that came raining down, and then licked its chops with its giant, festering, pus-filled tongue, leaving a trail of slime on its upper lip.

" **MOR-GAJ STILL HUNGRY!** " boomed Mor-Gaj. " **YOU PAY MOR-GAJ, TOO!** " he added, pointing one of its arms in Rita's direction. Rita recoiled away from the beast and clutched her purse against her chest.

"M-Mor-Gaj, please!" cried Rita. "I... I don't have very much at all! Have merc-"

Lynn Sr. clasped his hand over her shuddering shoulder. "Rita, j-just do what he says," he choked out.

Rita let out a tiny whimper, dug into her purse and pulled out her wallet, holding it aloft. Before she could pull out any money, Mor-Gaj stuck out his tongue, wrapped it tight around the wallet, pulled it into his enormous mouth and swallowed it whole.

" **YOU SAY YOU DON'T HAVE MUCH, SO MOR-GAJ JUST TAKE ALL OF IT.** "

"B-b-but that's not fair!" cried Rita, trying to hold back tears. "My credit card and driver's license were in that!"

" **NOT MOR-GAJ'S PROBLEM.** "

With a contemptuous snort, the huge, loathsome creature started slithering towards the door, seemingly content with the payment it received. However, just when it was starting to reach its arm down towards the doorknob, it paused.

" **WAIT. WHAT THAT?** "

Mor-Gaj twisted his head back and forth, sniffing at the air.

" **MOR-GAJ SMELL SOMETHING."**

Lily gulped, frozen in place. It occurred to her that while she had figured out a relatively simple way to get  _down_ the stairs, getting  _up_ the stairs was another story. All she could do was curl herself into a ball and pray that whatever Mor-Gaj was smelling wasn't her.

" **SMELL LIKE... SMELL LIKE...** "

With remarkable agility, Mor-Gaj swung his entire body around to face the stairwell, causing Lily to let out a yelp of shock.

" **SMELL LIKE BABY!**"

Rita and Lynn Sr. gasped and turned towards the stairway, mortified to see their youngest child cowering before the monster.

"Lily! What are you doing here?!" cried Rita. "Mommy told you to stay upstairs and wait for her!"

Mor-Gaj's nostrils flared and his glowing red eyes locked onto the infant as he moved in on her position. The monster's overpowering stench seared Lily's eyes and nostrils, causing dribbles of mucus to start leaking out of both. If that wasn't enough, Rita's words caused a pang of guilt to start swelling in Lily's heart, as it occurred to her that she wouldn't be in this position if only she had listened to her mommy.

" **YOU HAVE NEW BABY AND NOT TELL MOR-GAJ?!** " roared Mor-Gaj.

"We're sorry!" cried Lynn Sr. "We didn't think you would care if there was another baby in the house!"

" **WELL, YOU THOUGHT WRONG.** "

A ravenous grin started to spread across his face as he continued to edge closer. " **NOW MOR-GAJ FEELING HUNGRY AGAIN!** "

Immediately, the two parents lost what was left of their composure. Both of them burst into tears, dropped to their knees and clasped their hands together, groveling at the monster's feet.

"NOT THE BABY!" wailed Rita. "Take the house if you must, but please spare my child!"

" **MOR-GAJ ALREADY MADE UP HIS MIND!** "

In a panic, Lily tried to scramble back up the stairs, only to lose her grip on one of the steps and fall backwards onto her padded butt. When she glanced back over her shoulder, she saw both of her parents grappling with the creature, trying to hold him back. Mor-Gaj just let out a raspy belly laugh and flung the two of them to the side like rag dolls.

"Mama! Dada!" cried Lily, her heart sinking at the sight of her two protectors cast aside so easily. For fifteen months, they tended to Lily's every need and kept her happy and safe. The baby took it for granted that they'd always be able to protect her, and now she was being proven horribly, horribly wrong.

Lily started crying as loud as she could, putting every ounce of her energy into her infantile shrieks, in the vain hope that somebody would hear her and step in. Mor-Gaj just laughed and creaked open his gigantic maw, unraveling his discolored, festering tongue and scorching Lily with his putrid breath. Lily's crying was suddenly cut short when his tongue stretched over the stairwell and coiled itself around Lily's head, muffling her. Lily could do little but flail about and pound her tiny fists against the slimy, muscular organ as it dragged her forward.

The monster's tongue enveloping her body was the last thing Lily felt before she woke up.


	11. Lincoln

Lincoln lumbered out of his room with a labored yawn. It was 12:30 in the afternoon, and Lincoln was just now leaving his room for the first time that day. After a particularly exhausting school day on Friday, he decided to give himself the privilege to sleep in on Saturday - and sleep in he did.

 _Man, I can't wait for college_ , he thought.  _Then I'll be able to sleep in, like, every other day._

As he walked out into the hallway, he couldn't help but notice that the floor was uncharacteristically quiet. Granted, he didn't expect to be the  _only_ Loud who decided to sleep in, but he assumed that there'd be at least one of them out and about. Still, while he found the house's tranquil state a bit unusual, it didn't exactly bother him. If anything, the emptiness of the house gave him a rare opportunity to claim the TV all to himself - an opportunity he intended to take.

He tiptoed down the stairs, muffling his footsteps so as not to wake anyone up. After years of using that stairwell, he had memorized every spot on every step that produced a creak, a knowledge that proved invaluable on Saturday mornings. Or, in this case, Saturday afternoons.

Once he got downstairs, he plopped himself down on the couch and snatched up the remote, ready to veg out. As he was getting himself comfortable, though, he felt a small, rigid lump lying under his seat. He got up off the sofa and looked down at the spot he was sitting on to find, much to his delight, a shining dollar coin.

_Well, this day's off to a good start!_

But as he bent down to pick it up, he suddenly felt ten presences behind him. Those elusive sisters had picked the worst possible moment to show themselves.

 _Dang it_.

Lincoln grabbed the coin, fidgeting with it nervously in his hand, as he turned around to face his sisters - who, sure enough, were all right behind him, clustered together. After the "Sharon DeMonay" incident, he knew that there was no way he'd be able to get away with trying to hoard the money for himself. As such, the first thing that came out of his mouth was a hasty, frantic promise to share.

"I-I wasn't planning to keep it! I-if you girls have change, I'm sure we could split this... eleven... ways?"

Lincoln started trailing off once his eyes picked up something peculiar. All ten of his sisters were... smiling. And these weren't mischievous smiles, either; they were perfectly friendly, cordial smiles. Even Lucy was bearing one.

"Oh, that's all right, little bro," said Lori. "You can keep it all if you want. Finders keepers."

Lincoln looked down at the coin grasped in his palm. "Are you sure? We  _did_ promise to share money from now on."

"Sure we're sure!" said Lynn. "It's just a dollar. Keep it."

After a moment's hesitation, Lincoln pried open his pocket and dropped the quarter inside, keeping a wary eye on his sisters as he did so. None of them dropped their smiles for even a moment.

"Well... see you later, I guess," he uttered, as he started to walk back towards the stairwell. He was, apparently, too busy mulling over what just happened to look where he was going, and his foot ended up getting snagged on some of Lily's blocks, which she had carelessly left in the middle of the floor.

"W-whoa!" he cried, toppling over and landing back-first on the floor. Lincoln rolled over on the floor, hissing in pain and clutching his lower back, which had taken the brunt of the impact. While he was still recovering, he suddenly sensed a shadow looming over him.  _Oh, boy, here we go again_ , he thought, dreading a maelstrom of meddling from his overprotective sisters.

But when he looked up, he saw Luna, standing alone, extending a hand towards him.

"You all right, dude?" she asked. "You want me to help you up?"

Lincoln gave her a peculiar look, but accepted her offer. He grabbed her by the hand and let her pull him back upwards into a standing position.

"So... that's it?" he asked. "No gauze? No defibrillators?"

"That would be a gross overreaction to an extremely minor injury, wouldn't you say?" asked Lisa.

"Well, yeah..." admitted Lincoln, his voice trailing off. He was inclined to point out that such a "gross overreaction" was their typical response to a minor injury, but he didn't feel like pressing his luck. For whatever reason, they had decided to change their ways, and as far as he was concerned, it was a welcome change.

"Anyway, thanks," he said as he gave Luna a wave. "I'd love to stay and chat, but I've got some homework to do."

"No need!" said Lisa. "I've already done it for you."

Lincoln looked back over his shoulder towards Lisa and raised an eyebrow. "You did?"

"Indeed," she said. "I decided that you deserved a break, so I took the liberty of finishing all your assignments."

Lincoln couldn't help but crack a smile; he had been given a particularly heavy load of homework that weekend, and now he didn't have to worry about any of it.

"Um... wow. Thanks, Lisa."

Lisa returned the smile, pulled the TV remote out of her pocket and tossed it across the room into Lincoln's hands. "Now, you can devote your time to indulging in your favorite entertainment programming."

Lincoln peered at the remote and turned it over in his hands, inspecting it as if it were the first time he had ever seen such a device. The idea that someone in the Loud house would  _voluntarily_ give up the TV remote was borderline preposterous to him.

"You mean it?" he asked. "Don't any of you have programs you want to watch?"

"Don't worry about that," said Luan. "Just have a seat and relax! Today's your day."

Lincoln couldn't remember doing anything noteworthy for the sisters in recent memory, so this behavior was striking him as increasingly odd. Nevertheless, he figured that if they were going to give him a gift, it'd be polite to just accept it. He walked back over to the couch, plopped himself down, and clicked on the set.

"Just don't spend  _too_ much time in front of the TV," said Lori. "You don't wanna be late for the Ace Savvy fan meetup, do you?"

Lincoln jerked his head towards Lori, eyes popping. "The  _what_?!"

"Oh, haven't you heard?" asked Lori. "A bunch of Ace Savvy fans are meeting up at Gus' Games & Grub tonight at 6. I'm sure they'd love to have you!"

Lincoln's face lit up. "Gosh, thanks for letting me know! How'd you even find out about that?"

"Eh, I saw a poster for it at the mall," Lori said with a shrug.

 _Sounds reasonable to me_ , thought Lincoln.  _Gosh, I wonder if I still have my Ace Savvy costume lying around?_

That last thought, coupled with the prospect of a crowd of fans gushing over the craftsmanship of his outfit, spurred him into action. He hopped off the couch and started speed-walking towards the stairwell, only to be stopped cold by an interjection from Lori.

"Whoa, hey, there! Where are you going?"

Lincoln shifted his body mid-stride and turned around to face his big sister. "Oh, I was just going to check and see if I can find my old Ace Savvy costume."

"You mean  _this_ Ace Savvy costume?" asked Leni, beaming brightly. Before he could even ask her to qualify, she opened her purse, reached inside and pulled out the very costume he was going to look for - freshly washed, freshly stitched, and overall looking better than it ever did.

"Ta-da!" sang Leni as she held the outfit aloft by its shoulders, letting it unfurl like a flag.

A huge grin exploded across Lincoln's face. "Leni, that looks  _great_!" he cried. "Thank you so much!"

Lincoln strode over, took the costume out of Leni's hands and let it fall over his left shoulder. "And here I thought that you all hated this old thing."

" _Hate_ it?" Leni asked incredulously. "Like, where'd you even get that idea?"

Lincoln's smile shrunk just a tad, as his enthusiasm was dampened by the memories of his sisters' teasing. "Well, every time I wore the costume before, you all made fun of it."

"And we're  _really_ sorry for that," said Lana, clasping her hands in front of her. "We were wrong to tease you."

"Yeah, that's an  _ace_ costume if I ever saw one!" Luan added, following up the quip with her signature laugh. "But seriously, that costume looks great. I think we were just jealous of it!"

Lincoln's smile shrunk even further, as a feeling of suspicion crept in. The Luan he knew would never admit to being "jealous" of a superhero cosplayer, regardless of how well designed their outfit was. As he glanced across the room, he found that all of his sisters still had those same smiles that they greeted him on the couch with; none of them had even begun to falter or break.

"Okay, what's this all about?" he asked. "Are you trying to teach me a lesson? Do you want something from me?"

"What more could we possibly want from you?" asked Lynn. "We've already got the best brother anyone could ask for!"

"Winky bess!" Lily chimed in.

"And why would we want to teach you a lesson?" asked Lucy. "You're perfect the way you are."

Lincoln felt a twinge of unease at Lucy's remark. Their praise was already starting to feel a bit heavy-handed, but he  _really_ wasn't comfortable with being called "perfect" - especially when he knew he wasn't.

"Guys, seriously," he said, throwing his hands in front of him, as if to shield himself from the unrelenting compliments. "I don't know what's going on here, but you really don't have to act this way. Just be normal."

"We  _are_ being normal, silly," said Lola, sashaying up to Lincoln with her hips swaying. "Now, why don't you come up to my room and play with me and Lola?"

"M-maybe later," said Lincoln, as he shuffled back towards the couch. "At the moment, all I really want is a bit of..."

_Wait a minute._

Lincoln looked back towards the still-beaming Lola. "Could you repeat that?" he asked her.

"I said, why don't you come up to my room and play with me and Lola?"

The boy turned around and started taking slow, measured steps towards Lola, his brow tightening. "What do you mean,  _you_ and Lola? You  _are_ Lola!"

Lola shrunk away from her big brother, clasping a hand over her mouth to muffle a giggle. "Oops. My mistake. Tee hee. I meant me and Luna."

Lincoln's heart started thumping increasingly hard against his ribcage. "Who are you, and what have you done with my sisters?" was already a question he was prepared to ask at some point. Up until that moment, though, he thought he'd be asking it facetiously; now, he was asking it sincerely.

"Y-you're not Lola," he stammered, pointing an accusatory finger at her.

"Well, sure I am, big brother," said Lola, sounding sickeningly sweet. "I just got our names mixed up. That's all."

"N-no. No way. The real Lola would  _never_  make that mistake."

He then swiveled his head around to face his other nine sisters - or, at least, his  _alleged_ sisters - as his face scrunched up into a tight, rigid glower. "And I'm starting to have my doubts about all of  _you_ , too."

He set his sights on Lori. "Hey, Lori, what's your boyfriend's name?"

"Um, Bobby, duh," Lori said.

Lincoln narrowed his eyes at her. "His  _full_ name."

"Bobby Santiago."

"His  _full_ full name."

"Uhm..."

Lori tugged a bit at the collar of her shirt. "...Bobby Santiago... the Third?"

" _Wrong_!" barked Lincoln.

Lincoln's glare grew in intensity as it passed from sister to sister- including Lola, who had just walked back to join the rest of the group.

"That's  _it_ ," Lincoln snapped. "I demand to know what's going on here.  _NOW._ "

Lisa was the only one who responded in any visible way. She sighed, took off her glasses and gave them a polish. "It would appear that we've underestimated Lincoln's intelligence considerably. In colloquial terms..."

The young scientist put her glasses back on and leered at Lincoln, donning a Cheshire Cat-like grin. "...the gig is up."

Lincoln watched in disbelief as the girls' eyes turned a muted, sickly shade of yellow, and their pupils dilated to nearly twice their normal size. All the while, they were wearing the same sort of elongated, toothy grin that Lisa had displayed a moment before. After the transformation was complete, Not-Lola stepped forward, did a twirl and gave Lincoln a curtsy.

"Allow us to introduce ourselves," said Not-Lola. "We're the Sister Snatchers. We hunt for bad sisters, and we take them away."

"And then we step in and take their places," said Not-Lana. "We saw how awfully your sisters have been mistreating you, so we decided to step in."

A dozen questions popped into Lincoln's head - "What are you?" and, "Where did you come from?" among them - but he decided to start out with the most urgent one.

"W-what do you mean, you 'take them away'?!" demanded Lincoln, his voice growing hoarse from his ever-drying throat.

"That's literally none of your concern," said Not-Lori.

"Oh, yes it is!" cried Lincoln. "I want to know where my sisters are! My  _real_ ones!"

He took a step closer to the ten figures before him, with his teeth clenched and his nostrils flared. "And how  _dare_ you call them bad sisters."

"But they are, Lincoln," said Not-Lana. "Besides, we're better."

" _Way_  better," said Not-Luna. "We would never fight you over money, or tease you, or scare you into doing chores for us, or kick you out of the-"

"I. Don't.  **CARE**!" Lincoln screeched, straining his vocal cords. "It doesn't matter how much you try to spoil me. You'll never hold a candle to my real family!"

Not-Leni sighed and shook her head, giving Lincoln a sympathetic look. "Poor little Linky. He's gotten so used to his sisters' abuse that now he thinks it's what he deserves."

"It's not  _abuse_ , you freaks of nature!" he cried. "I've had just about enough of this. Tell me where you sent my real sisters or I'm calling the police!"

Not-Lynn sneered at him. "There's no point. You'll never find them."

"Yeah, we sent them far, far away," said Not-Luan.

"I thought we were keeping them downstairs to the basement," said Not-Leni, prompting a sharp jab in the ribs from Not-Lori.

Lincoln gasped, thanking his lucky stars that Leni's imposter was just as dim as the genuine article. " _Thank_  you," he spat at her, before making a mad dash towards the basement. The Sister Snatchers started to give chase, but before any of them could catch up, he cleared the basement door, slammed it behind him and locked it. With his lungs working overtime and his heart testing the limits of his ribcage, he clomped down the stairs in search of his real family.

As he descended the stairs, the first thing he noticed was that all the basement's furniture was cleared off to the side. The second thing he noticed was that in their place was an enormous box, big enough to take up half the room, that was covered by a tan tarp. The message "DO NOT OPEN UNTIL XMAS" was painted on the side facing the stairs in all-capital black letters.

 _They must really think I'm a moron if they thought I'd fall for that,_ Lincoln thought bitterly. He gripped the tarp tight in his trembling, perspiring hands and yanked it off of the box with all of his might.

Up to that point, Lincoln's mind was driven by a bizarre fusion of emotions, ranging from indignation to anxiety to confusion. Once the tarp was removed, all of those emotions were squelched and displaced by a singular, overwhelming feeling of horror. His body, his brain and his heart all froze in place, seized by the petrifying spectacle before him.

Underneath the tarp was a huge glass cube, in which all ten of his sisters were encased. All of them looked gaunt, pale and emaciated, their body fat consumed and their muscles atrophied, with deep purple bags just below their eyes and just above their visible cheekbones. Some of them were slumped against a glass wall, pawing at it, while others were just content to lay sprawled out on the floor. Before he knew it, all of them were turning their weary, lifeless eyes in his direction.

"Lin...coln..." groaned Lori, shambling towards him like a zombie. Her words snapped him out of his terrified trance, and he dashed over to the cube and started hammering it with his fists. It was no use; the wall was just too sturdy. His blows weren't even budging it.

"J-just hang on!" cried Lincoln, continuing to swing away at the wall out of sheer desperation. "I'll get you out of here somehow! I'll get you out and we'll- we'll all be a... family again..."

Lincoln could barely manage to choke out the last two words of that sentence without welling up. "I-I swear, I didn't ask for any of this to happen!" he cried, as tears began to blur his field of vision. "You're not bad sisters!"

"Yes, they are, Lincoln," came a voice from just behind the boy, triggering a yelp of shock. Lincoln spun around to see Not-Lucy standing just a foot away from him.

"Wha... how did you... I locked the-"

"I used the vents," said Not-Lucy. "But you  _are_ right about one thing, Lincoln. You didn't ask for any of this to happen. Why would you?"

Lincoln heard a thud coming from behind Lucy. Looking over her shoulder, he saw Not-Lana standing just below the open vent.

"You see, dear Lincoln, we're here to help boys who can't help themselves," said Not-Lana, who at this point wasn't even trying to emulate Lana's diction. "Poor, naive little boys who just don't know what's good for them. And you are one such boy."

"The hell I am!" snapped Lincoln, brushing fresh tears off of his cheeks. "I'm eleven. I'm old enough to know what I want. And I'm old enough to know..."

He jabbed his pointer finger at the glass cube. "...that I'd rather spend a  _decade_  locked in there with my sisters than spend a minute living with you... you  _creeps_!"

Not-Lucy's default frown curdled into a pronounced scowl. "You're being very ungracious, Lincoln," she said. "When somebody does you a favor, you're supposed to accept it and say, 'thank you'."

Lincoln bristled at the sound of Not-Lucy's voice. Though it was tonally similar to Lucy's, it was imbued with an aura of condescension and sanctimonious belittlement. The sheer audacity of this creature to try to pass herself off as Lucy made Lincoln's stomach churn with disgust; the Lucy he knew  _never_  talked down to others.

"You want to do me a favor?" he growled. " _Leave._ Leave, and never come back. But not before letting my sisters go."

Not-Lucy took a step closer to him. "I'm your sister now, Lincoln."

" **NO!** " bellowed Lincoln, losing what was left of his patience. He coiled his fingers into a firm, white-knuckled fist, which he launched straight at the imposter's nose. Without flinching, said imposter caught his fist in her palm and clutched it tight. Lincoln panicked and tried to pull his fist away, when...

_*SNAP*_

With a frightening lack of effort, Not-Lucy squeezed down and crushed Lincoln's fist, snapping his bones like twigs. Lincoln screamed in agony and dropped to his knees, with searingly hot tears cascading down his cheeks. With that same contemptuous frown plastered on her face, Not-Lucy released her grip, just to expose him to the morbid sight of his mangled, ruined hand. Then, without warning, she lifted her foot and stomped down on Lincoln's thigh, snapping his femur in two and causing a deafening crack comparable to a gunshot. Lincoln, now too hoarse to let out another shriek, flailed around on the floor, writhing in unbearable pain.

Through his blurred, tear-tinted vision, he could see Not-Lucy step away from him and turn back to Not-Lana.

"I think it's safe to say that he's a lost cause," said Not-Lucy. "Perhaps we should take off and try to find a different boy."

"I agree," said Not-Lana. "But may I help myself to a small snack before we go?"

"Be my guest."

Not-Lana looked down at the prone, helpless Lincoln with a maniacally hungry look in her yellow-tinted eyes. With her gaze locked onto him, she let out a hellish screeching noise and unhinged her jaw, revealing at least three separate rows of razor sharp, blood-splattered teeth.

The sight of her lunging directly at him was the last thing he saw before he woke up.


	12. Epilogue

"Get away! Don't hurt me! Leave me alone!"

Lincoln thrashed about, struggling against the grip of what he thought was Lana's monstrous imposter. The next thing he heard, however, was the sharply whispered voice of his eldest sister.

"Lincoln, shhh! It's okay! It's only me!"

The reassuring words caused Lincoln's heart rate to decelerate, and his feelings of panic petered out. After taking a moment to stop thrashing and take some deep breaths, he cautiously opened his eyes to find himself, mercifully, out of the basement. He was back in his bed, with a worried-looking Lori looking over him at his bedside.

"Lor...Lori?"

Lori lifted her hand off his shoulder and started running her fingers through his hair. "You were just having a nightmare. A pretty bad one, from the looks of it."

Lincoln looked over at Lori, and the memory of seeing her cadaverous, zombie-like form trapped inside the glass came rushing back. As much as he tried to remind himself that none of it actually happened, in the moment it just felt so...  _real_. So vivid. He couldn't help but feel like he was seconds away from losing her forever. With tears welling up in his eyes, he sprung out of bed and threw his arms around Lori, burying his face in her busom.

"Shhh," whispered Lori, stroking his back. "It's okay, Lincoln. I'm here. There's nothing to be afraid of."

A minute or two passed as Lincoln embraced his big sister, taking her soothing, reassuring words to heart. Lori wasn't the cuddliest of the Loud sisters, but Lincoln could always count on her being there for him when he needed her. That said, in this specific instance it was hard to imagine  _how_  she could have been there when he needed her, which occurred to him as soon as he calmed down from the fright.

"Hold on..."

Lincoln let go of Lori and backed a bit away from her, making eye contact. He gave himself a moment to wipe his cheeks dry before posing his question. "How'd you know I was having a nightmare?"

"Oh, I overheard you whimpering while I was in the hallway."

"Okay, followup question; what were you doing up in the middle of the night?"

Lori's eyes wandered off to the side. "Well, you're not going to believe this, but I had a nightmare too."

"You did?" asked Lincoln. "About what?"

"I-I'd rather not say," Lori said, her voice trembling just a bit. "But get this; when I woke up, I saw that Luna, Lucy, Lola and Lana had all crawled into bed with me. And when I looked over at Leni, I saw Luan, Lynn, Lisa and Lily bunking with  _her_."

Lincoln raised a skeptical eyebrow at her. "Did  _everyone_  have a nightmare?"

"What are the odds, right?" Lori asked with a chuckle. "Anyway, we decided that we're all gonna sleep together downstairs in the living room. And I'll get up early next morning and make us all some french toast. How's that sound?"

A quivering smile appeared on Lincoln's face. "Sounds great."

Lori took Lincoln by the hand, helped him up off of his bed, and led him out of his room with her arm around his shoulder. As they walked, Lincoln wrapped his arm around her waist, keeping her snuggled close to him. Once they got downstairs, he saw his other nine sisters cuddled together under a sea of blankets - the twins on the easy chair, and everyone else on the couch. Lincoln was greeted with a sleepy wave from some of the sisters who hadn't already gone back to sleep. He was taken aback, however, when one sister wriggled herself out of the cuddle puddle, stood up, stumbled over and gave him a hug.

Lynn.

The young athlete squeezed him tight, muttering incoherently and pressing her face into his shoulder. Lincoln was a bit confused, but decided not to object once he felt a couple of stray tears trickling down his back. He let her drag him back to the couch, and the two of them claimed a spot on the right side, with her spooning him.

"I love you, Lincoln," she whispered, pecking him on the cheek. "Don't ever forget that."

With those parting words, the two of them drifted back off to sleep, reassured that even after the torment they were sent through, they still had each other in the end.

* * *

And that concludes our venture into the Nightmare House.

As we've seen, a nightmare is a creature with near-limitless potential. Without the boundaries of reality in place, it can subject its victim to any torment imaginable, no matter how improbable, illogical or unfathomable. But I say  _near_ limitless, because there is one thing that a nightmare cannot do, and that is last forever. It can place you in the most hopeless, inescapably perilous position conceivable, and you'll still wake up just as safe and sound as you were before you went to sleep.

So tonight, if you find yourself dreading what haunting visions may await you when you lay yourself to sleep, remember this; eventually, you will wake up.

But  _maybe_  lay off the deep dish Hawaiian pizza if you want to stay on the safe side.


End file.
